Combat Support in Korea

iv i

U.S. ARMY IN ACTION SERIES

COMBAT SUPPORT IN KOREA

by JOHN G. WESTOVER ii

Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 54–13365

Facsimile Reprint, 1987, 1990

CMH Pub 22–1

Center of Military History United States Army Washington, D.C.

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Washington, D.C. 20402 iii

Foreword

The contributions of combat ser vice support soldiers to the success of American armies have often been o verlooked by both historians and the public. Thus, it is altogether fitting that this f irst volume in the Army in Action Series should be John G. Westover’s compilation of shor t, but instructive, pieces on service and support activities during the Korean War. The Center of Militar y History has received many requests for a reprint of this work, which was first published by the Combat F orces Press in 1955; it is a useful companion v olume to Russell A. Gugeler’s Combat Ac- tions in Korea, which was reprinted in 1984 as par t of the Army Historical Series. Both Westover’s subject and technique are w orthy of study and comment. While the details of combat actions in America’s wars have been studied extensively, comparatively little has been done to enlighten the soldier of today regarding how logistical operations were conducted at the small unit level. This book will ser ve to repair that omission. Westover compiled this book primaril y from a series of inter views conducted with men actually involved in the e vents “at g round level.” The oral histor y technique, which Army historians did much to de velop in World War II and later, is now an accepted historical method. The value of oral histor y as a means of getting to the details is amply demonstrated here. The Center of Militar y History is pleased to be ab le to initiate the Army in Action Series with the f irst CMH edition of John G. Westover’s Combat Support in Korea. This is the f irst volume in what we hope will be a series interesting to, and useful for , today’s soldiers and leaders at every level.

WASHINGTON, D.C William A. Stofft Brigadier General, U.S. Army Chief of Military History iv v

Introduction

This book is a collection of inter views with members of all the ar ms and services of the United States Army, except Infantry, Artillery, and Armor. The interviews were collected from se veral hundred officers and enlisted men who were serving, or had served, in the Korean conflict. As I talked with these officers and men I could not help feeling their aggressive spirit. Each realized that his service was essential to combat and that he was moving the operation ahead. But it w as more than just doing a necessary job. It was “do it better,” “do it more quickl y,” and, above all, “get the service as close to the combat soldier as possib le.” These officers and men told of hot meals, dail y laundering of the infantr yman’s socks, helicopter evacuation, ordnance mechanics w orking among the inf antry, and airdrop of flame thro wers at the point of use. I ha ve made their surg- ing spirit the theme of this study. COMBAT SUPPORT IN KOREA grew from the conviction of Maj.Gen. Orlando Ward, Chief of Militar y History (1949–1952), that the United States Army needs a record of its ser vice operations on the small-unit level. Interviews are sometimes better than high-le vel histories. They can widen the novice leader’s experience before he goes into the f ield. They supply illustrations for instr uctors, and they refresh officers who have not recently been in the f ield. They present vividly the problems of the other services with which we are not acquainted. The interview also lets us see how often the service troops experience the hazards of combat. No man in combat gets enough reco gnition, but some men have been denied honors justly earned because the word “Quar- termaster” or “Chemical” w as included in their unit designation. It w on’t dim the glory of the rifleman to gi ve credit to other members of the team. A year of interviewing has gone into this book. Some of the interviews were conducted in K orea by Eighth Army historians, b ut much more of the interviewing was done in the United States with retur nees. In addition, some of the stories have been condensed from speeches, letters, and maga- v vi Introduction zine articles. Much time and patience ha ve been put into these inter views by the men who have served, and who believe that their kno wledge will help the Army. Interviews are not histor y. They are personal accounts. An interview can be no more accurate than the obser vation of the teller, no more tr uth- ful than he is candid. Dif ferent units had dif ferent operating procedures. I cannot say that the operations related here are typical of all operations in Korea, or that the y are better or poorer . These are simply stories related by earnest men. Most interviews were oral. Notes w ere filled in by historians and returned to the inter viewee for comment. Ev ery effort has been made to recount the incidents as the y were originally related, with editorial w ork limited to keeping the stor y moving. Most of the stories retur ned from Korea resulted from g roup interviews and are, therefore, in the third per - son. The amount of space de voted to each ser vice is influenced more b y the stories obtained than b y any evaluation of the relati ve importance of sister services. While a majority of the inter views testify to the cor rectness of Army doctrine, some are critical of doctrine and indi viduals. I have usually removed the names of the indi viduals criticized because the criticisms are not substantiated and may be unjust, but there has been no change of unit designation and no w hitewashing. The reputation of the United States Army is too great to be diminished by honest criticism of some of its doctrines or a fe w of its members. In this study the historian does not point out violation of doctrines or decide betw een the contradictor y accounts. This is a factual, not a generalizing, study. I cannot credit all of the persons w ho have contributed to this volume. The names of more than a hundred are recorded in the tab le of contents. Special credit, though, is due these historians of Eighth Army: Captains Pierce W. Briscoe, William J. Fox, B. C. Mossman, and Edw ard C. Wil- liamson, and Lieutenants Bevan R. Alexander, Martin Blumenson, and John Mewha. Their contributions are labeled as the y appear. Mr. John E. Lee has had the tr ying job of typing inter views and drafts. Miss Mar y Ann Bacon has made man y editorial suggestions, w hile my wife has been the chief custodian of the b lue pencil and dictionar y. Lt.Col. Joseph Rockis has given endless encouragement throughout the months w hen progress seemed slow. To these, and many more, I give my thanks.

JOHN G. WESTOVER Captain, Infantry vii

Contents

FOREWORD by Brig. Gen. William A. Stofft iii

INTRODUCTION by the Author v

Part I: Corps of Engineers 3 1 Three River Crossings 5 2 Improvised Bridge 11 3 Causeway at Osan 13 4 Last of the Han Bridges 15 5 End of the Line 17 6 Destruction of Wonju 18 7 Mines Are Double-Edged Weapons 23 8 Learning by Doing 24 9 Disregarding a Minefield 26 10 The Mine that Saved Sinnyong 27 11 Recon Dailey 34 12 Inexpedient Expedients 37 13 The Delay at K-2 38 14 Equipment Without Operators 42

Part II: Transportation Corps 45

1 Critical Transportation 47 2 Truck Platoon in Korea 49 3 Amphibian Truck Company 57 4 Railhead at Masan 60 5 Problems in Railroad Operation 62 6 Railroading in Korea 65 7 Transportation Corps Operations at K-27 66 8 Breakage En Route 68 vii viii Contents

Part III: Chemical Corps 71

1 The 2d Chemical Mortar Battalion 73 2 Letters from a Commander 75 3 Smoke Generating 80 4 Napalm Bombs in Korea 81 5 Flame Throwers 83

Part IV: Signal Corps 85

1 Developing a Signal Organization 87 2 Answers Not in Textbooks 88 3 Flexibility of VHF 90 4 The Provost Marshal’s Transmitter 91 5 Relay Station on Hill 1157 93 6 Everyone Wants a Telephone 94 7 The Mukden Cable 95 8 Signal Operations in Korea 97 9 Division Artillery Message Center 98 10 Code 99 11 The World’s Biggest Little Airline 100 12 Division Aerial Photography 102 13 Combat Cameraman 104

Part V: Medical Corps 107

1 Battalion Forward Aid Station 109 2 Evacuation at Soksa-ri 110 3 Helicopter Evacuation 111 4 Optical Treatment in the Field 113 5 Dental Treatment in the Field 114 6 Changing the Mission 115 7 Operation of the 8076th MASH 116

Part VI: Ordnance Corps 121 1 Mobile ASP 123 2 Artillery and Hand Grenades 125 3 The Van Fleet Rate of Fire 126 4 Division Ordnance Work 127 5 Close Ordnance Support 128 6 Attempted Tank Evacuation 132 7 Operation Failure 135 Contents ix

Part VII: Quartermaster Corps 139 1 Division Supply Operations 141 2 Quartermaster Problems and Services 150 3 Delivery by Air 153 4 Service Company Runs Depot 159 5 Testing Equipment in Korea 161 6 Rations in Korea 162 7 UN Approval of U. S. Products 169 8 Wet-Cold Clothing Indoctrination 171 9 Command Action in Korea 175 10 Clothing Exchange 177 11 QM Service Center No. 3 178 12 Pukchon Cemetery 180 13 Repatriation of American Dead 183 14 Supply Lessons 184 15 The Failure of Support 187

Part VIII: Security, Combat, Morale 189

1 Refugee Removal 191 2 Ordnance Company Under Attack 193 3 Attacks Unwelcome 198 4 Fighting Medics 199 5 Task Force Baker 201 6 Secondary Mission 205 7 Combat Comes Suddenly 206 8 Efficiency Through Morale 210

Part IX: Short Bits 213

1 Unification 215 2 How to Get Lit Up 215 3 Speedy Refueling 215 4 What’s the Score? 216 5 Loading in Flight 216 6 VHF Ship to Shore 217 7 Rescuing Wounded by Tank 217 8 Time for Reflection 217 9 5-in-1 Mule Ration 218 10 You’ve Got to Follow Through 218 11 Recaptured American Wire 219 x Contents 12 Intrenching Tools 219 13 Bridge Assembly on Land 220 14 A Dilemma 220 15 Integration 221 16 Broken Springs 221 17 Language Problems 221 18 Fire in the Hole! 222 19 Combat Boots 222 20 Need for Trained Personnel 223 21 Division Airdrop 223 22 Who Wants to Serve in the Rear? 223 23 The Sagging Bridge 224 24 Carelessness Is Expensive 224 25 Patrol Evacuation 225 26 Problems of Sizing 226 27 Wire Recovery 226 28 Supply Guesstimates 226 29 For Want of a Nail 227 30 Infantry Division Port 227 31 Roadbound 228 32 Helmets for the 38th Infantry 228 33 Camera Patrol 229 34 Security Through a Swap 229 35 Flame-Thrower Tanks 230 36 Pick Your Method 230 37 Preparation for Action 230 38 Borrowing a Bridge 231 39 Why Pay the Combat Soldier? 231 40 Wire Cutters Caught 232 41 What Do You Feed a Korean? 232 42 Redesigning a Bridge 233 43 Infantry Replacements 233 44 Eager Beaver 234 45 Icebreaker, M1 234 46 Curtailing the Money Black Market 235 47 Temperature Adjustment 236 48 Shortage of Spare Parts 236 49 Lead-in Wire 236 50 Feeding Koreans 237 51 Convoy Troubles 237 52 Hot Food 238 53 Never Put Off Till To-Morrow. . . 238 54 Supply by Cable 238 55 Protecting Perishables 239 Contents xi 56 Finance on the Alert 239 57 Napalm 240 58 A Real Convenience 240 59 Radio Displacement 240 60 We Didn’t Overlook Anything 241 61 Seeing Is Believing 241 62 Who’s Afraid of a Tank? 242 63 Laying Telephone Wire by Air 242 64 Payroll by Helicopter 243

INDEX 247

COMBAT SUPPORT in KOREA 2 Combat Support in Korea 3

PART I Corps of Engineers

1. Three River Crossings Capt. Richard P. Lepke, 3d Engineer Combat Battalion

The 3d Engineer Combat Battalion (24th Inf antry Division) was in a rest area at K yongsan on 17 September 1950, after a series of long moves and f ights around the Naktong perimeter . I commanded Charlie Company. At 2300 the battalion staf f and company commanders were summoned by the battalion commander (Lt.Col. P eter C. Hyzer). He told us that w e were to mak e a series of assault crossings of the Naktong River, carrying the entire 24th Inf antry Division. The operation was to jump of f at 0245, 19 September 1950, south of Waegwan and northwest of Taegu. Able and Charlie Companies w ere to get the tough jobs of car rying the two assault regiments of the 24th Di vision. Able would carry the 19th Infantry, while Charlie was responsible for the crossing of the 21st Infantry. The regiments would cross the Naktong simultaneousl y, some six miles apart. At the time of this meeting, not e ven the battalion commander had had a chance to mak e a reconnaissance or e xamine aerial photos of the crossing area, even though the operation w as to begin in twenty-seven hours. The battalion had no assault boats but w e were promised these at the crossing site b y corps engineers. Fur ther, we were to receive one boat per company on the follo wing day in order to f amiliarize the men with the equipment. A few days before this order w as issued we had received a hundred Koreans for each compan y as replacements. We had star ted a training program for them but w e had not made much pro gress because of our constant preoccupation with combat. We had a language bar rier and all communication was channeled through their inter preters and through one of our NCOs w ho spoke fluent Korean. The infantry regiments also had Korean filler personnel. None of the engineers had recei ved any assault training in K orea, and 5 6 Combat Support in Korea

many of the people w ho had had practice in Japan w ere now casualties. Probably not over ten per cent of the U .S. personnel had launched an assault boat since their da ys of basic training. The infantry was also without assault river-crossing experience. There wasn’t time for much coor - dination between the engineers and the inf antry. To top it all, our Korean replacements had never before seen an assault boat. The next day (18 September), w hile the engineers w ere familiarizing themselves with the one boat per compan y, the company commanders and key officers of the battalion staf f joined the inf antry in a reconnaissance of the Naktong. Our reconnaissance par ty was much too lar ge, involving six jeeps and tw enty persons. Near the ri ver bank we came under enemy observation and received some rounds of mor tar fire. No one was injured. The engineer battalion w as bivouacked twenty-five miles from the proposed crossing sites. The route to the crossing sites crossed the K umho River, but all of the bridges had been b lown. An underwater (sandbag) bridge had been operated b y the Nor th Korean Army and w as being used by the U.S. troops, b ut this would not handle light v ehicles because of the depth of the water. All jeeps had to be carried on a small ferry. As we returned from our reconnaissance w e found traffic backed up for a couple of miles, bumper to bumper , east of the fer ry. The road was only one and a half lanes wide and the hea vier vehicles were unable to move to the underw ater bridge until the jeeps, w hich were mixed in the column, moved onto the fer ry. These were 24th Division vehicles moving up for the crossing mix ed with vehicles of cor ps engineers (repairing the underwater bridge), and a scattering of tr ucks from other units. When I retur ned from my reconnaissance at 1700, I found Charlie Corps of Engineers 7

Company loaded and ready to go. Attached to us for this crossing w ere a platoon from Baker and one from Do g. Since we had only our organic personnel and equipment, and car ried no assault boats to re veal our intentions, we were allowed to move during daylight. We moved independently of battalion. There was no traffic control but w e moved normally until we approached the fer ry. Then we had to mo ve slowly and lost a full hour . Still we reached our initial assemb ly area south of Naksan-dong b y 1930. I left Charlie Compan y in def ilade and moved forward to the crossing site with the tw o platoon leaders w ho were each to be responsib le for moving an assault inf antry company. We planned to cross the tw o companies abreast, about a hundred yards apar t. I showed the lieutenants their sites, found an abandoned fo xhole near the ri ver bank w hich I claimed as my forward CP, then returned alone to the company. I had to inf iltrate the company out of the initial assemb ly area, for it was not quite dark and enem y mortar fire was being concentrated on one flat stretch of the road. We closed unhar med in our forw ard assembly area at 2100. It w as an apple orchard just three hundred yards behind the crossing sites. A prominent house nearb y came to be a f avorite target for artillery fire next day. The Naktong River at this point w as some four hundred feet wide, and had a moderate cur rent. The river bank at one site w as a sheer drop of some seven feet. This was cut down by the 2d Platoon after dark. At the second crossing point the bank w as cut by a path w hich led to the beach. From the bank to the w ater’s edge ran a flat, sandy beach about a hundred yards wide, punctuated onl y by some abandoned tactical wire. The beach was not strong enough to hold vehicles. I assigned the 1st Platoon to the f irst crossing site, the 2d Platoon to the second site. The 3d Platoon w as to unload the boats w hen they arrived and to or ganize the inf antry into boat cre ws. To the attached Baker Company platoon I g ave the job of la ying a pierced-plank roadway (of airstrip type) o ver the beach as soon as the f irst wave was landed. This would facilitate jeep-ambulance and ammunition traf fic. The attached Dog Company platoon was to stand by to await orders. The infantry started arriving in the f inal assembly area at 2300 and closed in the area b y 0100. We had plenty of time to break them do wn into boat crews and give them elementar y instructions since the assault boats still had not arrived. The commander of the inf antry regiment was much upset o ver the delay, but there w as nothing we could do. I sa w him talking to Colonel Hyzer several times and I kno w that messengers w ere sent out to tr y to locate the missing boats. At one time the re gimental commander mentioned calling off the attack, as it did not appear that the crossing could be made during darkness. 8 Combat Support in Korea Finally, at 0400, the tw enty-eight assault boats ar rived. They were 1 loaded both on pole-type trailers and in the beds of 2- /2-ton trucks. It is hard to unload an assault boat from the bed of a tr uck, and this slowed down the operation. Worse, however, the drivers simply disappeared as soon as the tr ucks halted. We had to locate our o wn drivers to spot the trucks and trailers, After all twenty-eight boats and their engineer cre ws were lined up along the road near the ri ver bank, the inf antry came forward. Daybreak came as the f irst wave was on the w ater. There was no enemy fire at first, but as our boats reached the center of the stream an e xtremely heavy volume of small-ar ms fire hit them. Mor tar and SP f ire began to strike the near bank and the assembly area. Apparently our simple instr uctions had not been understood b y the Korean infantrymen, for the y refused to lea ve the boats, and a fe w returned to the near shore. Ser geant Weird broke his carbine o ver the hand of one man to get him to release his hold on the guide rail. As soon as the inf antry landed on the f ar shore, the boats immediately started back. Eight of the tw enty-eight assault boats did not mak e it back. In some cases the cur rent carried them too f ar downstream and the inexperienced paddlers could not retur n them. In others, the boats were so riddled that the y sank and their engineer cre ws returned in other boats. Of the K orean engineers who went with the f irst wave, none was known to retur n. Maybe they misunderstood their mission and stayed with the inf antry. Maybe they drowned—we had no life jack ets. Later, when we tried to round up all of our K oreans for replacements, we could locate only 22 of our original 100. Many had just con veniently disappeared for a short time, however. As the retur ning boats reached the near shore, the enem y turned his fire on the second w ave as it mo ved by to the beach. These infantrymen took cover on the beach b y lying on their bellies near the w ater’s edge until Sergeant Weird called for them to get loaded and help their buddies on the other side. Hearing this, one ser geant jumped up and y elled, “If the engineers can stand up and tak e it, so can w e!” To a man the infantry hurried to the water’s edge and loaded up. As soon as w e counted our boat losses w e sent an ur gent request to battalion for replacements. In an hour w e received sixteen. We also got a boat-repair detachment w hich was attached to battalion for this operation—but these men claimed the y had no equipment with w hich to make repairs. Only their sergeant would leave the cover of the orchard and go onto the beach to survey our damaged equipment. The fire on the near beach made it impossib le for the platoon of Baker Company to lay its roadway. Some self-propelled guns k ept firing on our assembly area and beach until 0930. The infantry on the f ar shore reorganized quickly but had strong Corps of Engineers 9 resistance from the enem y. Our ar tillery helped and so did the Air Force. When the planes be gan to use napalm some of the Nor th Koreans panicked and ran. These were immediately shot like quail. The fighting on the f ar shore lasted about thir ty minutes. The infantry carried air-identification panels on their backs and w e could see little envelopments and assaults taking place. Our men w ere aggressive and moved right up to the enem y without hesitation. Soon w e watched the panels moving up the draws, over the crest, and out of sight. We kept crossing the inf antry into the after noon. By this time w e had crossed two battalions of the 21st Inf antry and were working on the third. The crossings had cost m y company 42 men, onl y 8 of w hom were U.S. troops. What happened to these men I don’ t know, since we had no time to locate the missing after the operation was over. At noon, while we were still paddling the 21st Inf antry across the Naktong, I was alerted for another crossing. Charlie Compan y was selected to cross the Naktong ag ain that very evening, this time car rying the 5th Infantr y above Waegwan. We were selected because w e were the only company in the battalion assemb led at one nearb y site. Dog Com- pany was to take over our present operation and suppor t the 21st In- fantry on the far shore. I took my executive officer and a ser geant with me on a reconnaissance. We joined Colonel Hyzer and some of his staf f officers, and proceeded to Waegwan where we met the commander of the inf antry regiment (Colonel Throckmorton). Colonel Throckmorton told us that his regiment was clearing the bank of the Naktong as f ar north as Hill 303, where he was to make a juncture with friendl y troops. Hill 303 w as the key to the operation because of its commanding height, but it had not yet been taken. In any case, it w ould be necessar y to cross at least one battalion that night, e ven if the east bank w ere not cleared of the enemy. The attack was parallel to the ri ver bank and Hill 303 w as some ten miles nor th of Waegwan. I was given leeway to select the crossing site anywhere in this ten-mile zone. I mo ved my small par ty to the rear of the lead compan y of the 5th Inf antry. We had to hit the ditch se v- eral times when the enemy put up small bits of resistance. At 1430 the infantr y still had not reached Hill 303, so I decided that to get a da ylight reconnaissance I w ould have to select a crossing site somewhere between my present location and Waegwan. Two miles nor th of town I found a site w here the banks, tur naround, assembly areas, approaches, and the f ar shore looked pretty good. By radio I ordered the company to meet me on the road, and I started back to Waegwan. In Waegwan I lear ned that the 21st Inf antry, which we had crossed that morning, was moving along the f ar shore of the Naktong. This meant we could make an administrative crossing. I inspected a b lown- 10 Combat Support in Korea out bridge in Waegwan and decided this w ould be a good site. Charlie Company reached to wn almost as soon as I did , and the boats w ere delivered to us b y corps engineers within another thir ty minutes. By 1700 or 1730 w e began to land the inf antry on the f ar shore. We improvised a fer ry and began moving men, jeeps, and equipment on it. We had one battalion across within forty-five minutes. Our company kitchen w as set up in an orchard in Waegwan and we fed the men in shifts. But before I got a chance to eat, I w as ordered to cross the other tw o battalions of the 5th Inf antry eight miles nor th of Waegwan near Hill 303, w hich we now held. I mo ved out to mak e a reconnaissance before it became completely dark. We selected a site, but as the inf antry seemed in no hur ry to cross, we held off until the follo wing morning (the 20th). We continued to operate the fer ry at Waegwan all night of 19–20 September and left one platoon in Waegwan for that pur pose. The other tw o platoons moved up to the new site. In the crossing the ne xt morning our site w as defiladed, we had infantry on both flanks to gi ve covering fire, mortars were emplaced, tanks and self-propelled guns w ere registered, and the air suppor t was excellent. The Air Force bombed and strafed a village near the crossing site and maintained ar med reconnaissance overhead. The crossing was unopposed. We crossed two battalions before noon and I loaded m y men to move on. I repor ted to battalion in Waegwan—hopeful that we could get a rest. Instead w e were ordered to suppor t the 19th Inf antry in an attack on Sangju. We gave general engineer suppor t in this operation. The encounter was brief because the enem y was surprised by the flanking attacks our river crossings made possible. Within three days Charlie Company had recei ved orders for, had planned, and had e xecuted three river crossings, suppor ting two different regiments. During the same period it had gi ven general engineer support to a third regiment in attack. In the crossing of the Roer Ri ver in Ger many, my engineer battalion had three months of preparation. 1 We actually formed the e xact crews and car ried the same g roups of inf antry in dr y-run crossings of a similar river under similar conditions. How different was Korea! 1I then commanded the 2d Platoon of Compan y B, 121st Engineer Combat Battalion (29th Infantry Division). Corps of Engineers 11

2. Improvised Bridge Capt. Richard F. McAdoo, 65th Engineer Combat Battalion

In Korea, improvising was the nor mal thing in bridge constr uction. With minefields, explosives, or for tifications we could follow doctrine closely. But bridging was different. We usually didn’t have the required materials for an y job, and w e never had an engineer dump close at hand. In the f irst six months of Korea, lack of reinforcing engineer units meant that w e had to rel y on our own resources. When the division needed a bridge it w as up to us to build it, make it class 50 if possible, and see that it was built to last. How important bridge constr uction was to a combat engineer company can be realized b y looking at the record of Compan y A, 65th En- gineer Combat Battalion—thir ty-five bridges built in nine months. We built eight timber bridges, three from 120 to 180 feet long, in one week! The Nam River crossing at Chinju w as typical of the impro vising we had to do to accomplish our mission. From 16 to 26 September 1950, the 25th Inf antry Division made its drive out of the Pusan perimeter and captured Chinju. The 35th In- fantry, with Compan y A, 65th Engineer Combat Battalion, attached , spearheaded the attack. Three days before we reached Chinju, the commander of the 35th Inf antry (Col. Henr y G. Fisher) asked me what plans had been made to bridge the Nam Ri ver. I didn’t know and I had trouble getting telephone contact with battalion to f ind out. Even after I got to talk with the battalion e xecutive officer, I didn’t get an immediate answer. He had to call me back, and ga ve me the message for the engineers (and, incidentally, the inf antry): “Don’t worry about the Nam River. The division will halt at Chinju. ” But when we reached the ri ver, the division’s plans were changed and w e were ordered to cross and continue the attack. Company A worked with the inf antry in the assault crossing of the river. The enemy had only a few squads of men on the f ar shore and the y pulled out after a v ery short skirmish. The infantry had a fe w casualties; we had none. Immediately after this we began to build a bridge. At Chinju there w as a high-level .concrete bridge w hich had been partially destroyed. We couldn’t repair it because the bridge w as too high and the destroyed spans were much too long. Unfor tunately, we didn’t have the materials to make a new bridge, either. The Nam River at this point w as 300 feet wide and about 6 feet deep, and the cur rent was swift. Downstream from the main highw ay was a fordable site for track ed vehicles. We helped to cross a battalion task force of the 35th Inf antry by towing the wheeled vehicles with tanks and 12 Combat Support in Korea a D7 dozer. My 3d Platoon mo ved out with this task force and I had only the remaining two platoons to bridge the river. At 1600 we faced our f irst problem: locating materials. We had 7 pole-trailer loads of v arious-sized timbers, 2 tr uckloads of 3-inch-by-12- inch decking—and that w as all. We sent reconnaissance par ties out to find anything that would help. First we found 15 steel sections commonl y used as sheet piling, each 50 feet long. These were in the stream bed and apparently had been discarded w hen the per manent bridge had been built. In addition to these, about tw o miles from the bridge site w e located a lar ge stockpile of hea vy timbers suitab le for bridging. These timbers were a better building material than the steel piles, but the narrow road from the bridge site to the timbers w as bumper to b umper with trucks waiting to cross the ri ver. The assistant division commander stayed at the bridge site gi ving us priority on the roads and all the help he could, but the tr ucks going two miles and back to load timbers took six hours for the round trip. F ive of these hours w ere lost because of the congestion. To speed the project w e pulled the steel piles out of the ri ver and used them. When darkness came w e took a chance and used tr uck headlights for illumination. In spite of the f act that the enem y had been pushed off the f ar bank onl y the after noon before, w e had no inter - ference. The stream bed w as of sand, and we knew that we could not b uild a lasting bridge in that strong cur rent without spending a g reat deal of time making strong footings. But in this project speed w as more important than per manence. We just placed 12-inch-b y-12-inch timbers, 14 feet long, drift-pinned to gether on top of one another , to for m intermediate supports. The bridge was at water level, which made it easy to float the suppor ts out to position, set them v ertically, and attach the stringers. For the f irst three spans w e used the steel piles as stringers on 40-foot centers. The remaining stringers w ere made with 6-inch-b y-12- inch or 12-inch-by-l2-inch timbers, and v aried from 15 to 20 feet in length. We had 140 pieces of decking material—onl y twenty per cent of the requirement for this bridge—and w e found no other suitab le material nearby. We determined that this w as enough, ho wever, to b uild two treads. One would be 2 feet wide, the other 3. We spaced the treads so that a jeep could use them-but it w ould have only 2 inches of lee way 1 on the inside of each tread. Our 2- /2-ton trucks had no dif ficulty crossing, but wide ammunition trailers could just cross without going of f on the outsides of the treads. We placed small curbings to pre vent accidents. The capacity of this bridge was estimated at twenty tons. While the engineers w orked on the bridge, f ive hundred civilians helped on the approaches. Here w e had a prob lem of f ill and had to use Corps of Engineers 13 rubble and everything else available for the job . We took f ifteen mines out of the path of the far approach. Traffic was moving down the approaches and across the bridge within twenty hours of our star ting time. We spaced the v ehicles fifty feet apart and watched the str ucture very closely. It was both fearful and wonderful to watch the give in those steel-pile stringers. Soon after traffic started, Company A moved out with the 35th In- fantry. Company C’s men took o ver the maintenance and completion of our bridge. They immediately started to sandbag the base of the inter - mediate supports, for without footings the cur rent had already be gun to suck the sand out from under them. Compan y C even put in additional intermediate bracings—while traffic was moving over the bridge. This expedient bridge lasted as long as it w as maintained, and until the old bridge w as repaired. I belie ve this w as ten da ys or so. I wouldn’t recommend this as a model str ucture, but it did put the di vision across the Nam River fast.

3. Causeway at Osan Lt. Sam D. Starobin, S2, 65th Engineer Combat Battalion

During the withdrawal of November 1950–January 1951, the 25th Infantry Division withdrew across the Han Ri ver at Seoul and continued south on the main road as f ar as Chonan. At Osan we crossed the Chinwi River and there the 65th Engineer Combat Battalion b lew the bridge. We believed we were withdrawing from Korea and we did thorough work on our demolitions. The bridge at Osan w as a 280-foot, tw o-lane, four-span, concrete structure. The abutments were fifteen feet high. The bridge w as demolished by blowing alternate piers and the south abutment. This left a saw-toothed appearance. Four weeks after we had destroyed this bridge w e were back to it and were faced with the prob lem of crossing the Chinwi Ri ver. Osan was built up to the bank of the ri ver, which prevented us from b uilding a bypass alongside the bridge. We had to go east of the to wn with a de- tour, then ford the river upstream. Our new bypass was not satisf actory. It lengthened the route b y more than a mile and the ri ver bed gave us a g reat deal of troub le. The spongy clay was frozen several inches deep, but the constant mo vement of our heavy vehicles over it soon brok e this cr ust and the v ehicles bogged down. We had to move the bypass several times. 14 Combat Support in Korea We did not feel justif ied in expending materials or labor to mak e this bypass permanent and we feared high w ater would make it useless. We didn’t have 280 feet of bridging, and a shor ter bridge would have to cross the spongy river bed. The battalion S 3 (Major Joseph P essa), the CO of Compan y A (Capt. Richard F. McAdoo) and I held a conference at the bridge site. We concluded it would be more practical to build a ne w bridge than to repair the damaged one. But w e also found that the deck of the old concrete bridge was adequate for a causeway. Company A placed four hundred pounds of TNT kicker charge to blow piers 1 and 3, and the nor th abutment. The explosions were simul- taneous.

After the site cleared w e could see that our calculations w ere accurate and that the bridge had dropped as planned. The concrete deck of the old bridge no w formed a causeway over the banks and stream some four feet above the g round. There was plenty of room under neath for the river to flow at low stage. Within six hours of our conference traf fic was rolling across the ne w Corps of Engineers 15 causeway. There was no limit on tonnage on this str ucture, but it was limited to one-lane traffic. During the heavy spring rains se veral other bridges along the route were washed out. I kno w that this one w as functioning perfectly as late as April. The river might have gone over it later, but it could ne ver be washed away. We used this system of stream crossing se veral times later. It always worked.

4. Last of the Han Bridges Capt. D. J, Haden, Lt. Rodman M. Da vis, Lt. Jack R. Wheatley, Company C; Capt. Donald E. Roush, S 4, 14th Engineer Com- bat Battalion. (Inter view by Capt. B. C. Mossman, 6th Histori- cal Detachment.)

On 15 December 1950, the 14th Engineer Combat Battalion, supporting I Cor ps, was ordered to assume responsibility for the security and maintenance of the floating M 2 and M4-M4A2 bridges over the Han River at Seoul. The battalion was further ordered to prepare plans for removal and for demolition of each of these bridges. The big maintenance prob lem was to keep the ice brok en up around the floating bridges. Ice w as a par ticular problem because the Han Ri ver is tidal. Instead of freezing smooth, the ice froze in w aves that were constantly building up on the pontons and betw een them. The four- to five-inch-thick ice alongside the bridges had to be chopped up—and broken by driving DUKWs over it. Ice patrols w ere sent along the ri ver to report large floes. The order to dismantle the M 2 bridge on 2 Januar y 1951 was received on 1 Januar y. Company C was ordered to do the dismantling, assisted by a platoon of Compan y B, and tr ucks and cranes of the 55th Engineer Treadway Bridge Company. One detail planned to tak e down the nor th and south bank trestles, one squad working at each. A second detail w ould disassemble the bridge into four-float rafts. A squad would work on each raft and mo ve it to one of the thir teen disassembly sites, located do wnstream of the bridge on the south bank. One platoon w as to operate the ponton deflation point, established near the disassembly points. The weather on 2 Januar y was cold and windy; the temperature was near 10 de grees. The cold made it dif ficult for the men dismantling 16 Combat Support in Korea the bridge, but did not hinder the w ork noticeably. The day was so bright that the glare from the ice was hard on the eyes. Dismantling the M 2 bridge took eleven hours. The men detailed to the job repor ted at the bridge site at 0530 to break the ice, and be gan actual disassembly at 0700. The trestles and ponton sections at each bank were first lifted, and the bridge w as then broken down into four- float rafts. Once a four -float raft was removed from the bridge, a DUKW towed it to one of the disassemb ly sites for fur ther dismantling. The DUKWs were needed because some of the damaged floats had become filled with water and ice, and were too heavy to tow by hand. At the disassembly site, each four -float raft was broken down into separate floats. Ice had collected in front of the rafts as the y were towed, and they could not be brought close enough to the bank to be walked out. Cranes were used to lift them. The removal of pins betw een the sections w as a serious prob lem. Some of the pins had r usted; others were frozen in place. In order to get the pins out the section had to be le veled. This was difficult to do because some of the floats w ere heavy with ice and w ater. Sledge hammers and bars were finally used successfully to remove the pins. Each float was completely dismantled and then deflated. An officer of the 55th Treadway Bridge Company inspected each ponton and the unserviceable ones were burned. Except for the upstream anchor cab le, the entire bridge was moved by 1800. At 2300 hours, 3 Januar y, Companies B and C recei ved orders to begin the disassembly of the M 4–M4A2 bridge on 4 Januar y. The companies arrived at the bridge at 1600 to be gin clearing ice from around the pontons, but the bridge disassemb ly did not be gin until 1100, e xcept for the removal of unnecessar y cables, curbs, markers, and guide rails. A tactical development caused the dela y. A British infantr y-tank force was pocketed by the enemy north of Seoul and it w as believed that a rescue force might be dispatched. This force did not materialize b y 1100 and the dismantling was begun in ear nest. The Eighth Army coordinator, stationed at the I Cor ps control point, set the time limit for dismantling at 1300. All equipment not remo ved at this time w as to be destro yed. The I Corps engineer was able to get this e xtended to 1400, b ut at 1330 Eighth Army gave a standby order to b low the bridge, so all w ork halted. Half of the balk, the cab les, curbs, markers, and guide rails w ere the only parts of the bridge salvaged. Demolition materials were already at the bridge site. At 1100, un- primed charges were placed on the bridge w hile disassembly was going on. In general, the December plans for demolition w ere followed. Most important of the changes w as the increase of TNT from 114 to 1,800 pounds, because of the shor tage of tetr ytol. The engineers used bangalore tor pe- does to destroy the balk and , since they had no incendiar y grenades, they Corps of Engineers 17 substituted gasoline-soaked sandbags to f ire the r ubber pontons. At 1505 the firing order was received and the bridge was blown. When the bridge did not sink after the f irst blast, a careful check w as made. It was discovered that some of the char ges had not f ired. This was unusual. Ordinarily, sympathetic detonation will cause all char ges to explode, and the f ailure probably was due to the e xplosives having become frozen. Inspection of the bridge pro ved it necessar y to recharge and ref ire. After this was done the bridge w as checked again. This time it w as sink- ing. The end of the bridge w as not spectacular, for the rapidl y freezing water caused it to submerge slowly. With the destr uction of the M 4–M4A2 bridge, all bridges across the Han River in the Seoul area w ere eliminated. It w as a g reat disappoint- ment to the engineers that the y were not given time to disassemb le this bridge, but all of the engineer missions in the withdra wal over the Han River were now accomplished.

5. End of the line Lt. Carrol W. Guth, 185th Engineer Combat Battalion. (Con- densed from an inter view by Lt. John Me wha, 8th Historical Detachment.)

The evacuation of Hungnam w as not hur ried, and each installation was demolished as soon as it w as no longer needed. A railroad bridge and rolling stock w ere destroyed on 15 December 1950 b y Company B, 185th Engineer Combat Battalion. The 2,100-foot railroad bridge consisted of 29 spans, 8 of w hich were wooden-tie cribbings built up to the deck le vel. When Company B was ordered to destroy this bridge and all the rolling stock in the Hungnam area, it was decided that the projects should be link ed. Spans of the railroad bridge would be destroyed individually and as man y cars and engines as possible would be pushed into the void before blowing the next span. About 15 engines and 275 cars w ere assembled for demolition. K o- rean railroad men helped shuttle the railroad cars from Hungnam to the bridge. When the Koreans learned that the rolling stock w as to be destroyed they became reluctant—and had to be prodded to do the job . By contrast, the engineers found the job enjo yable—a release for their pent- up emotions. At 1545 the souther nmost span was blown. Ten cars and se veral engines were pushed into the g ap until it w as filled. Some of the cars w ere loaded with gasoline and the engines had steam up. As they were pushed 18 Combat Support in Korea into the def ile the wreckage caught f ire. This process was repeated at each span. When the men reached the section of w ood cribbing, several carloads of POL and an engine w ere spotted on top of it, and the cribbings ignited. The heat w as so intense that the locomoti ve became cherry-red and its w histle started blowing. In a fe w minutes the w hole section had crumbled. As some of the cars w ere pushed into the g aps, the ends of the rails would spread and rip. This prevented other cars from being pushed of f. Blocked spans were, therefore, blown with the rolling stock on them. By mistake, a boxcar loaded with demolitions w as pushed onto some flaming wreckage. The resulting b last injured two men. The destruction continued throughout the night.

6. Destruction of Wonju Lt. William H. Champion and MSgt. Julius R. Gr upe, 2d Engi- neer Combat Battalion. (Inter view by Lt. John Me wha, 8th His- torical Detachment.)

The 2d Inf antry Division was defending Wonju, but on 6 Janu- ary 1951 it w as again necessary to withdraw. To destroy communications through Wonju and to r uin those supplies that could not be e vacuated, demolitions were ordered. Although Wonju is divided by the Wonju River, it is linked b y a railroad bridge and a highw ay bridge. Nor th and east of the ri ver was the 38th Infantry. It w ould be necessar y for the re giment to withdra w across these bridges. F or this reason the 38th Inf antry was charged with their destruction, The actual demolition w ork was to be done b y the 3d Platoon of Compan y C, 2d Engineer Combat Battalion. This narrative is primarily concerned with the actions of the 3d Platoon. At this time the 3d platoon consisted of for ty-two men and w as commanded by Lt. William H. Champion. The platoon was in direct support of the 38th Inf antry and had as its nor mal assignment the maintenance of the Chechon and Noto-ri roads. During the evening of 6 Januar y the 38th Inf antry ordered the 3d Platoon to prepare to demolish the highw ay bridge, the rail way bridge, 16 freight cars loaded with 80 tons of ammunition, and tw o tons of K o- rean rifles and ammunition located in a church w est of Wonju. The demolitions were to be car ried out on order of the commanding of ficer of the 38th Infantry. The 3d Platoon w as quartered on the second floor of a concrete Corps of Engineers 19

building in Wonju which was also the CP of the 38th Inf antry. At 0500 next morning, the men w ere awakened and told that an estimated three enemy battalions had inf iltrated the regimental perimeter and w ere en- tering Wonju. Each man mo ved to his fo xhole outside the CP b uilding. The weather was a very cold 20 de grees, with snow on the g round and a sharp wind blowing. The platoon heard sporadic f iring and occasionally saw tracers and flares. At 0700, Lieutenant Champion and his four demolitions men prepared to go to the bridge sites. A jeep was loaded with e xplosives, and a 3 driver was instructed to take a /4-ton truck loaded with demolition materials to the railroad bridge. Onl y 150 yards from the CP an enem y machine gun, located on high g round to the east, opened f ire on the road. When the engineers sa w the b ullets hitting the road ahead , they concealed their jeep and took co ver in a ditch. They soon saw a company of the 38th Inf antry moving through town searching for the enem y. The company split, par t of it mo ving toward the machine gun, w hich was silenced in five or ten minutes. Lieutenant Champion and his demolitions cre w walked with the infantry through Wonju, and the jeep load of e xplosives followed at a re- spectful distance. The infantry killed a number of enem y on its s weep through the village. They also set up a machine gun near the highw ay bridge and f ired it at the houses east of the Wonju River. The engineers hand-carried their demolition char ges to the bridge and w orked under the covering fire of the machine gun. The highway bridge w as a reinforced concrete str ucture and the engineers had 450 pounds of Composition C 3 with which to destroy it. Composition C3 is pliable and has g reat shattering power. It is much more easily used and will f it into places w hich cannot be reached b y TNT. The engineers placed 200 pounds of the e xplosive on each of the f irst two 20 Combat Support in Korea piers, and 50 pounds on the deck of the bridge, to break it in the middle as the piers collapsed. After fifteen minutes the friendl y machine-gun crew departed and the demolition par ty was without security, To get obser vation, Lieu- tenant Champion moved northward in the ri ver bed a fe w yards. Twenty minutes after he took up this ne w position the lieutenant noticed f ive or six North Koreans coming up the ri ver bed single-f ile from the south. Evidently they were trying to get back to their o wn lines. The lieutenant shouted to his men. The lead enemy soldier, who had approached within forty feet of the bridge, reached into his b louse for a hand g renade instead of raising his rifle. Lieutenant Champion could not f ire because his own men were between him and the tar get. One of the engineers shot this North Korean and the rest scattered behind a dik e. Several more enemy soldiers joined the f irst group and a f ire fight began. The engineers took cover behind the bridge piers and rocks in the ri ver bed, but soon they flanked the dike and in f ifteen minutes killed 9 Nor th Koreans and took 3 prisoners. After the f ight ended, the men retur ned to the bridge and completed the placement of demolition char ges. The engineers then mo ved to the railroad bridge. The railroad bridge had nine or ten piers. The second and third w ere made of log cribbings, and the others w ere of concrete. As the railroad bridge was a stronger str ucture than the highw ay bridge, the demolition men used six hundred pounds of Composition C 3 to mine it. They used 200 pounds on the f irst log-cribbed pier and 300 pounds on the f irst concrete pier. They placed 100 pounds on the top to breach the span. A five- gallon can of g asoline was hidden in the lo g cribbing of the third pier for emergency use. Once the w ork was under w ay Lieutenant Champion drove off to the railroad station, lea ving Sgt. Lester H. Johnson in charge. At the railroad station Lieutenant Champion found sixteen bo xcars loaded with ammunition of all types, scattered on three sidings. He decided that the best demolition plan w as to wire the cars with primacord so the cars w ould explode simultaneously. As soon as his men joined him he assigned one man to set all the e xplosive caps while the others placed the demolition charges in the bo xcars. The men placed a case of Composition C3 in each car on top of all the other e xplosives, and then set a detonator cap in a b lock of TNT on top of the C 3. A complete circuit of primacord was placed around all the cars, with a connection r un from each side of the primacord net through the bo xcar into the case of C 3. At the end of the net, four long pieces of primacord with f ifty feet of time fuze (appro ximately twenty-five minutes’ normal burning time) w ere extended to the vicinity of the railroad station. This was an added precaution in case some of the fuzes failed to burn. Corps of Engineers 21

It was 1030 when this wiring was completed. The demolition men returned to the CP building, and Lieutenant Champion dro ve up to the church building. When he arrived he found that the munitions w ere already prepared for demolition. After checking to see that e verything was in order, he returned to the CP building. While the demolition crew and Lieutenant Champion were away, the S3 of the 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry, ordered MSgt. Julius R. Grupe to take a squad to the airstrip to destro y the housing, gasoline, and other supplies in this area. Before leaving, Sergeant Grupe’s men gathered all the tracer ammunition the y could f ind. Then they marched through slush and snow to the airstrip, arriving both wet and cold. Airdrops had left some two hundred drums of gasoline, small-arms ammunition, and C rations scattered throughout the area. It w as disheartening to the men to have to destroy so many supplies. One pair of men worked on each side of the field. Sergeant Grupe felt that two men would do a more ef fective job and that it w ould reduce the possibility of surprise. No effort was made to move the drums and the 22 Combat Support in Korea

men fired tracer ammunition into them w here they lay. The gasoline caught fire and bur ned down to the b ullet hole, then e xploded. Some twenty cases of small-ar ms ammunition were piled around one gasoline drum and set af ire. It took ten minutes before the heat caused the ammunition to explode, and by this time the men had withdra wn to a safe distance. Ten to twelve cases of C rations w ere collected and gi ven to the 38th Inf antry. Three or four b uildings which might have military use were fired with torches made of gasoline-dipped rags. When the detail retur ned, it mined the CP building. At about 1730, the S3 of the 1st Battalion infor med the engineers that the enem y had begun to inf iltrate into Wonju again. Lieutenant Champion ordered his platoon, less Sergeant Johnson, to withdra w with the inf antry CP g roup. The demolitions w ere to be b lown at 1800, but w hen the hour approached the inf antry had not cleared the bridges or the to wn. The authority to order the demolitions had been dele gated to the commander of the 2d Battalion (Lt. Col. James H. Skelton). At 1900 Colonel Sk elton and his dri ver went to the bridges with Lieutenant Champion and Ser geant Johnson to mak e certain the area w as clear. Colonel Skelton halted at the highw ay bridge while the two engineers drove up the ri ver bed f ive hundred yards to the railroad bridge. Here they heard two or three enem y soldiers talking onl y ten yards beyond the bridge, near the point w here the fuzes w ere located. The Amer- icans dismounted and as quietl y as possible moved to the third pier w here the five gallons of gasoline were cached. Lieutenant Champion opened the can and poured it on the tw o log-cribbed piers. He and Ser geant Johnson threw matches into the g asoline and f ired the bridge. Then they withdrew—rapidly. By 1920 the engineers w ere back at the highw ay bridge, but Colonel Skelton and his dri ver were gone. It w as learned later that the y had been forced to withdraw by the approach of enem y soldiers. A three-minute fuze had been stretched from the demolition char ges to a ditch on the Corps of Engineers 23 Wonju side of the str ucture. As Sergeant Johnson approached the ditch a North Korean soldier jumped up and star ted to r un. Johnson yelled and Lieutenant Champion shot this enem y soldier. The time fuze w as pulled and the two men drove rapidly to the railroad station. On the w ay they heard the charges explode on the highway bridge. The streets in Wonju were littered with r ubble, and bur ning houses illuminated the area. No enem y was encountered. When the men ar rived at the railroad station the y ignited the time fuzes and sta yed long enough to make sure the po wder trains had star ted to bur n. At the church they followed the same ,procedure. All the fuzes lighted , the engineers dro ve south on the Noto-ri road. Within twenty minutes they had caught up with the infantry. The powder train leading to the primacord net around the bo xcars was old, and it took 1 hour 12 minutes to bur n. At about 2100, w hen Lieutenant Champion w as five or six miles south of Wonju, the sk y lighted up and “it was light enough to read a newspaper.” When the Americans returned to Wonju it was found that all demolitions had exploded. The log cribbings on the railroad bridge had bur ned and the highway bridge had to be rebuilt. The boxcars were demolished and the CP and other buildings were completely gutted.

7. Mines Are Double-Edged Weapons

Lt. Sam D. Starobin, S2, 65th Engineer Combat Battalion

Mines are double-edged weapons. Properly employed they can be a strong instr ument of defense. Improperl y used they are a menace. Espe- cially is this tr ue for an ar my like ours, where vast numbers of tr ucks and tanks are employed. I have seen at least 150 disab led North Korean tanks —none of which had been destro yed by mines. I ha ve also seen a g reat number of American tanks and tr ucks destroyed by our own mines. Not all of these w ere in minef ields laid by Americans. A large percentage of the mines that destro yed our vehicles and killed our troops had been re- laid by the enemy. This need not ha ve been so. We could have reaped a g reat advantage had we employed mines intelligently. American mine warfare doctrine is sound, but after Eighth Army had shipped 120,000 mines to units, onl y 20,000 were recorded or on hand. The remaining 100,000 w ere either abandoned or buried unrecorded! The infantry sometimes asked my company to lay undefended minefields where there were gaps in their lines. The infantry commanders were 24 Combat Support in Korea advised that this w as not a sound practice. But on se veral occasions these hard-pressed leaders insisted and w e laid the f ields. I know from personal experience that this often happened in other units. The enemy found it easy to pick up the mines in unguarded f ields and lay them behind our o wn lines. It w as a convenient source of suppl y of the 20-pound mines for an enem y with a poor transpor tation system. When we did not cover our f ields with f ire we invited the enemy to mine our own rear areas. A second method of losing mines to the enem y was by abandonment. Too many mines were moved forward. A change in the tide of battle resulted in the loss of lar ge quantities of mines. Some commanders tried to destroy the mines, but this is not easy in the field. Failure to record minef ields was a serious prob lem in Korea. It is not until you return to a mined area that y ou appreciate accurate minef ield reports. We should lay mines indiscriminately only if we never intend to return and do not v alue the friendship of the population. Yet we had repeated instances of units la ying minefields which they did not record. Under the pressure of hasty withdra wal, mine-laying sometimes de- generated to pitching armed mines from the back of a moving truck. When the 25th Inf antry Division crossed the Han Ri ver in earl y March 1951, we started running into unrecorded American minefields. I personally visited units that had operated in the area and inquired about minefields. The 53 of the 3d Engineer Battalion recalled mine f ields laid by unit near Uijongbu w hich, under the stress of retreat, had not been recorded. A number of our v ehicles had str uck mines and soldiers had been killed at the positions he indicated. As an engineer 52, I passed along to the infantr y every minefield location that I lear ned of. I kne w that long, technical repor ts would not be understood and that repor ts to the 52s did not reach the companies. I made large-scale sketches of mine f ields, using g raphic symbols and nontechnical language. These were duplicated and distrib uted down to the company commanders. When an inf antry company commander saw that an attack would take him through a minef ield, he called on the engineers to help him. The infantry respect those minefields now.

8. Learning by Doing Major Richard I. Cra wford, Korean Military Advisory Group. (Extract from a speech of 17 February 1951.)

The necessity for some type of land mine w as becoming increas- ingly apparent as more and more enem y armor came in. At the outset w e Corps of Engineers 25 had no source of antitank mines; ho wever, on Tuesday, 27 June 1950, w e received word that General MacAr thur’s headquarters would support our efforts. We immediately asked for mines, and b y Friday we had received about eight hundred. The ROK troops had not had an y training in antitank mines. In fact, they had never seen an M 6 mine, but in this respect the y had nothing on me. I had ne ver seen one either . However, I had an adv antage in that I read and understand English f airly well, and the instr uctions are pasted on the inside of the indi vidual mine’s carrying case. Shor tly after the f irst mines were received, we instituted a shor t course on combat operations. We spent half an hour teaching the technique of la ying and ar ming the M6 mines, and then we went off to the front. As long as an American was closely supervising the operation, e verything went fairly smoothly, but when the ROK engineers had to act independently we ran into troub le. Our half hour of training hadn’ t taken too well. They would forget to put the detonators in, or ha ving done that, would forget to ar m them. Their ideas of concealing the mines left much to be desired , and, on one occasion, one of m y officers caught a detail on the road, just throwing the mines—car rying case and all—of f the back end of a mo ving truck. It actually took the K orean engineers about tw o weeks before they laid any genuinely effective antitank minefields. During this tw o-week period, the K oreans had “a better idea. ” Without our knowledge they prepared charges designed to strap around the waist of a soldier and for med some “body contact squads. ” Members of these squads w ere to move into the side of a tank, pull a fuze lighter on a two-second fuze, perhaps disab le the tank, and cer tainly join their honored ancestors. I ne ver found out ho w many tanks we actually disabled by this method, but I do kno w that in the f irst four or f ive days we ran awfully short of “body contact” people. The ROK Chief of Engineers told me he was experiencing some difficulty in getting additional volunteers. Again, we ran into the e ver-present problem of defending an obstacle. It required herculean ef forts by the KMAG advisers to k eep any force behind the minef ields, and seldom w ere we successful until w e got into our f inal defensive positions on the Naktong perimeter . The South Koreans were loath to use mines because of their pre vious mishandling. However, on the perimeter the y did lay both antitank and antipersonnel mines. On one of the defended antipersonnel f ields, we accounted for 113 enemy casualties in a tw o-hour night attack. This action raised the morale of our f ighting forces, and at the same time created a suppl y problem: we couldn’t get enough mines for them. Later, on the road betw een Yongchon and Uisong, engineers placed a well-sited antitank minef ield on the road and to each side of the road near a bridge. Again the f ield was defended. This time a tank came do wnhill, struck a mine, and tur ned sideways in the road. Another tank, fol- 26 Combat Support in Korea lowing closely, tried to go around the f irst, and str uck a mine. Our troops prevented any attempt to breach the f ield by laying down small-arms fire on the site, and a nearb y tactical air control par ty called for an air strike. While the F-51s w ere corning in, three more tanks and a self- propelled gun came do wn the hill. The planes dropped napalm and rock- eted all six of the v ehicles. They claimed six kills on that operation. Not to be outdone, and on the theor y that if it hadn’ t been for our engineers the Air Force wouldn’t have had a tar get, we claimed six kills, too. Thus, some of the exaggerated reports we hear about.

9. Disregarding a Minefield Major Glade 5. Wittwer, 53, 8th Engineer Combat Battalion

While we were still in the Naktong perimeter , I saw an example of reckless disregard of elementar y minefield precautions. The 8th Cav- alry (1st Cavalry Division) was conducting local of fensive operations three miles nor th of Chigol. One mile nor th of the to wn was a small stream. The existing bridge had a b ypass already prepared to the east. Just beyond the bridge w as an ROK battalion command post, and to the left was an 8th Cavalry aid station. The North Koreans held ridge positions to the nor th. From these positions enemy infantry infiltrated on the stor my night of 17-18 Sep- tember 1950. They had placed 26 U .S. M6 mines in the shoulder of the road and 18 in the b ypass. Then the Nor th Koreans placed demolition charges on the bridge and blew it thirty minutes before dawn. All of this w as done so quietl y that one American sentry remained within a few feet of the minela yers without noticing them. The adjacent units were so sur prised at the b lowing of the bridge that the y called the engineers to repor t that the bridge had been hit b y a large-caliber shell. Shortly after the bridge w as blown, three M 4 tanks came up the road. The first tank took the b ypass and immediately hit a mine. Because the shoulder of the road w as of loose sand , the mine b lew off a tread b ut did not injure any of the crew. The tank commander immediatel y detailed two crewmen to warn all traffic. Anticipating the ar rival of a tank retrie ver, the second tank pulled off the road. It too lost a tread. By now the rain had w ashed sand from abo ve other mines and it appeared they were widespread. The tankers’ warning was not enough for most Americans. Vehicles moved up into the danger area. The next casualty was an ar tillery forward observer party. A lieu- Corps of Engineers 27 tenant and his tw o radiomen drove up, were warned of mines, b ut still took the bypass. They hit a mine and all three were killed. Soon an officer and an enlisted man approached in a jeep. The officer dismounted and the jeep w ent ahead. The driver decided that he couldn’t make it. In turning around he hit two mines, and was killed. This was the last attempt to use the b ypass until the mines w ere cleared by an engineer detail, but v ehicles continued to mo ve up and stop on the shoulders of the road. One brigadier general pulled of f the road and discovered that he had dri ven within twelve inches of becoming a statistic!

10. The Mine that Saved Sinnyong Major David F. Campbell, Korean Military Advisory Group

From 30 August to 6 September 1950, the R OK 6th Engineer Combat Battalion engaged in unceasing mine w arfare. All of its acti vities were in suppor t of the R OK 6th Division in one of the most critical periods of the Naktong perimeter . If the battalion’ s success w as greater than usual, it w as because of the careful coordination of the mine warfare and the over-all tactics of the division. The mountainous nor theast sector of the Naktong perimeter w as defended by Republic of Korea troops. In the center of R OK II Cor ps its 6th Division lay astride the Yongchon-Andong highway and the K yong- gyong South Line Railroad , with its command post at Sinn yong. In this area the highway and railroad r un southeast to nor thwest, and are canalized by the mountains. Sinn yong served as the forw ard railhead for both the ROK 6th and 1st Di visions, with the main suppl y road of the 1st Division running through the sector of the 6th. Opposing the 6th Di vision were the Nor th Korean 1st, 8th, 14th and 15th Divisions, plus elements of an unidentif ied armored division. The enemy infantry was aggressive and applied continuous pressure. On the right flank the Nor th Koreans occupied Hills 783 and 828, seriousl y threatening Sinnyong. The 6th Division had to remain on the defensi ve in the center and left in order to tak e the offensive on the right to protect the communications line. The division’s front was extremely broad because its line w as curved. Shrewd use of mines allo wed the division to straighten its line and shift a maximum number of troops to the of fensive. Not only was there inf antry pressure, but from the main highw ay North Korean tanks lobbed harassing shells into Sinn yong. The fire was 28 Combat Support in Korea

unobserved and most of the rounds landed in the rice paddies, but small deflection shifts would have scored hits on the MSR, the marshaling yards, and military installations. A staff conference was called on 30 August to consider w ays to stop this tank menace. The division commander (Major General Kim), his KMAG adviser (Lt. Col. Mar tin O. Sorenson), the di vision engineer (Major Pak), and I w ere there. It w as decided that the engineers w ould be responsible for stopping the tank f ire, but any action we took must fit into the larger division defense plan. The enemy tanks approaching Sinn yong came do wn the highw ay from Yodok-tong to a cur ve in the road. A crater in the road , a small minefield, and a platoon of engineers pre vented them from rolling on into Sinnyong. No additional troops could be spared from the di vision to reinforce the position. F ortunately, the tanks could not flank our position as the road w as winding and nar row and there w ere sheer drops of three Corps of Engineers 29 hundred feet from its edge. Although the enemy had not tried to force the roadblock, we decided that the position must be strengthened. That evening the cor ps engineer (Col. Le w Won Sik), his KMA G adviser, two KMAG advisers from the R OK 19th Inf antry (in w hose section the roadblock lay), Major Pak, I, and our inter preters made a reconnaissance. At the roadblock we picked up the platoon leader and two engineers. We moved 250 yards be yond our forward positions to the road crater. It was not quite dark, so w e could look directl y into Yodok-tong and the enem y front lines. As dusk approached w e could see the North Korean infantry crawl out of their hiding places in the to wn and mill around. We decided that the ter rain and the steep w all flanking the road made this an ideal tank trap. We could station a bazooka team at the crater, have infiltrators mine the road near Hw asu-dong, and send tank- hunter teams along the road. After thirty minutes at the crater w e began receiving sporadic ar tillery fire. We returned to the di vision CP in Sinn yong and there continued planning our tank trap, mine pro gram, and demolition of a railroad tunnel. Generally, the minef ields were to be hea viest in the center . To undertake the minef ield program I requested and recei ved two platoons of engineers that were being used as infantry. Later in the night the engineers emplaced for ty M6 antipersonnel mines over sixty yards of the road at the point w here the tanks stopped to fire (Minefield 1). Unlike our previous laying of M 6 mines, these were not only armed but each w as activated by placing an M 3 antipersonnel mine under neath it, and then attaching a three-inch trip wire to the handle.1 We made this f ield even more for midable by placing f ifty- two antipersonnel mines along the nar row shoulders of the road with trip wires laced across the road and its shoulders. This would take advantage of the practice of the Nor th Koreans of sur rounding their tanks with engineers to clear mines and inf antry to prevent close-in attack. Since the tanks w ould be canalized b y the twelve-foot road, we figured that our preparations w ould be effective against inf antry-armor attack. Fortunately, no enemy tanks arrived to interrupt our work. While this minef ield was being constr ucted Minefield 2 was being installed nearby and tied in with Minef ield 1. About 250 M 3 antipersonnel mines were laid south of Yodok-tong in an in verted chevron pattern. We worked quietly, and the enem y all around us did not reco gnize that we were ROK troops. On 31 August the sketches of our pre vious night’s activities were recorded and sent forw ard. A great deal of time w as spent in making a 1Arming a mine is the process of remo ving all safety de vices. Activating a mine is the process of boob y-trapping it, either b y setting an inter nal fuze or b y using another mine. 30 Combat Support in Korea

physical inspection of all e xisting minefields and making plans for strengthening them. On the night of 31 August–1 September, Company A, ROK 9th En- gineer Combat Battalion, laid ninety M 3 antipersonnel mines in an e x- tension of Minef ield 2 (Minef ield 3). These made a second che vron. In using the chevron pattern we were following the Soviet system, which the North Koreans employed. It was not only the efficiency of this pattern that attracted me but its deception, since the Nor th Koreans would not expect it. We completed our work at about 0200, and the minef ield party began to withdraw. We were careful to go east of the f ield, to take advantage of the protection of the f ield itself. Just at that moment a company of Nor th Korean infantry began an attack. They came from the direction of Yodok-tong, bunched up and r unning upright. Almost the entire company got into the f irst belt of mines before the y hit the f irst trip wire and realized their predicament. Mines e xploded and men screamed. The attackers turned in panic onl y to kick more of the trip wires. The whole affair lasted scarcely five minutes, yet we estimated a hundred casualties. We returned to f ind our minef ield badly damaged. Artillery fire began falling, so we left without making the repairs. As the Corps of Engineers 31 result of this e xperience I tried thereafter to get infantr y protection for minelayers. I spent a good par t of the ne xt day (1 September) teaching e xpedients for overcoming the shor tage of activating devices, and devoted some time to instr uction in ‘booby traps. The South Koreans were especially interested in boob y-trapping the little car ts the enemy used to carry supplies, so I de vised a method. An infiltrating party would remove a wheel, place the axle on the g round, and f asten a trip wire to the axle. When a g roup lifted the car t to replace the w heel the booby trap went off. This diabolical device was referred to by the ROKs as “the sha ver” —from the effect it had on one’ s head. Teams went deep into the enem y lines and placed numerous boob y traps, all of w hich were carefully recorded. The same da y we began to acti vate antitank mines. Except for Minefield 1, this had not been done before. In f ields over 500 yards long, we activated 20 per cent of the mines. The smaller f ields we activated 100 per cent. That night (1-2 September) w e laid two more minef ields. One of these, Minefield 4, was placed to the rear of Yodok-tong to for m a par t of our tank trap—w hen we should get around to springing it. It consisted of ninety antipersonnel mines, with trip wires, laid o ver an area of nine hundred yards. The other f ield was to the left of our roadb lock on the main highway. The need for more troops on the right flank of the di vision was so strong that e ven the engineer platoon at the roadb lock had to be redeployed. During the night of 2-3 September w e continued with our mine- laying and completed tw o more f ields. Just before these f ields were completed, the inf antry on the left flank of the di vision was pulled behind the minefields and the g aps left for the pur pose were closed. We continued to strengthen our old f ields, and e ven repaired Minef ield 2, where the attack had occur red. The enemy dead remained as a w arning to others who might attempt to attack at this point. Now that we had minef ields across the di vision’s front and had read- justed our lines, w e were ready to spring the tank trap. On the night of 3-4 September we formed two engineer and one infantr y 3.5-inch rocket teams. At 1900 we moved out to the crater and left Team Able (four engineers) with instr uctions not to f ire until they heard f iring from one of the other teams. Two hundred yards f arther north on the road w e left Team Baker from the 19th Infantr y, with instr uctions to lay low until they heard fire from the northern end of the trap. The third bazooka team accompanied a platoon of engineers, w hich I led, to the bridge at Hw asu-dong. We moved around to the left of Minefield 4, kept quiet, stayed in def ilade, and were able to move into enemy territory without causing alar m. We found that the bridge at 32 Combat Support in Korea Hwasu-dong had been damaged b y the Air Force, but that the enem y had made a ford fifty yards northeast of the bridge. North of the bridge w e laid a hasty minef ield from the ri ver to the ford. Moonlight made the w ork easy and flashes of distant ar tillery increased the visibility. The rocket team selected a position tw o hundred yards south of the bridge and some f ifty yards off the road. The engineers joined them, and all be gan to dig shallo w foxholes. As we heard our ar - tillery plaster the enem y, we were glad we had coordinated our mo vement before coming into the area. At midnight, about for ty-five minutes after w e had taken up positions, we heard tanks coming do wn the road. These were preceded by a mine-clearing team, which easily found the mines on the top of the road. We saw the lead men drop to their knees, g rab the mines without e xam- ining them, and thro w them off to the shoulder . None of these mines e x- ploded for they had not been acti vated. But we could see from the careless way their engineers handled the mines that the y were in for a sur prise! As soon as the tanks had breached the minef ield they forded the river and moved on with their foot par ty. I don’t know how many tanks passed, but by the ar tillery flashes I counted f ive T34s. When no other tanks passed our position for tw enty minutes, I sent tw o squads of engineers to place a deliberate minef ield in the road , each mine of w hich was to be activated. After this was done, I knew we had the tanks. Just as our mine squads retur ned to our positions, a lone enem y tank came down the road without foot troops accompan ying it. I guessed it was from the same par ty as the f irst tanks, but had f allen behind. The tank approached the end of the bridge and stopped. One cre wman had started to get out of the tank w hen our bazooka team edged up to within fifty yards and f ired. The projectile str uck just behind the tur ret. None of the crew escaped and the tank burned, blocking the road. The ROK troops became excited for a fe w minutes and f ired their rifles to catch anyone in the vicinity . Then we withdrew quickly to our o wn lines. We soon heard a g reat deal of f iring to the south, w hich meant that our other teams were in action. Team Able was seventy-five feet above the road w here the f irst tank would have to halt. It remained quiet and allo wed the f irst tank and ac- companying party to approach. Ten or f ifteen enemy engineers moved along the road on their hands and knees, feeling for mines. When they reached the f irst activated mine and felt its pressure plate the y jerked it out! The explosion killed every one of these men. The infantry, as we had anticipated, rushed for the shoulders of the road, and immediately ran into our maze of trip wires on the antipersonnel mines. Of the 50 to 100 men, surely half were killed. Until now neither bazooka team had f ired. Five tanks had passed Team Baker but the team w aited to see if there w ere more. By the time Corps of Engineers 33 they knew that this w as all, the last tank w as masked from their f ire. The rocket team moved to the road. As these men rounded the bend , the rear of the f ifth tank was only fifteen to twenty yards away. The gunner heard the exploding mine and he f ired directly at the tank. This tank exploded and bur ned, blocking the road. The bazooka men scur ried up the bank and headed for home. Within a minute of these tw o actions, Team Able fired down on the first tank and hit it at the junction of the tur ret and the motor . The force of this explosion ripped off the tur ret and the ammunition b lew all at once. The second explosion lifted the tank of f the road and hurled it down the steep bank three hundred feet into a rice paddy , where it landed upside down. As Team Able was not in a position to f ire at any of the other tanks, it headed for our lines. During the night I sent bazooka teams along that road and tw o more tanks were destroyed. One was destroyed by the inf antry and there w as a squabble between the inf antry and engineers for credit for the second. The argument was heated, for the Repub lic of Korea offered a bonus of a hundred thousand won to each unit that destroyed a tank. During the night w e had destroyed five T34 tanks. In the mor ning Colonel Sorenson sent an air reconnaissance par ty forward and the y called for Mosquitoes to s weep the area. These planes found nine more tanks in our trap. Air strikes destroyed all nine. Our tank par ty over, there w ere other prob lems. Pressure in the north was growing and we had to mo ve more troops to the right flank. A captured tank lieutenant told us the enem y had brought eighty-f ive tanks into our sector on 1 September . We knew that our bag of four teen had hurt them, but w e didn’t think our present positions w ould hold against a heavy thrust. We began cratering the main highw ay and laying additional belts of mines behind a straighter front line. We also tur ned our attention to blocking the railroad tunnel. Our tunnel project had w aited while we collected TNT. At the east end of the tunnel w e now placed 2,350 pounds of TNT pressure charge in the overburden so as to completel y close the tunnel’s mouth. At the west end we placed only 900 pounds. We did not place enough TNT in this end of the tunnel to completel y block it since w e hoped to lure the enemy into the entrance. Then we placed f ifty-two booby traps with trip wires. The preparation was competed on 5 September , but the char ge was not blown until the next day. On 5 September the enem y began a drive on the front of the R OK 8th Division (on our right) and b y 9 or 10 September had tak en Yong- chon, some ten miles to our rear . The 19th Inf antry was placed to protect our rear. Once more w e had to shor ten our line, and it w as minefields that ga ve us time to mo ve and erect a defensi ve barrier. Not only did we build up our o wn defenses; we also took the mines to the 34 Combat Support in Korea enemy, infiltrating ten miles deep and placing mines and boob y traps as far back as Habon-dong. On 6 September w e blew the railroad tunnel. After this we entered the west opening and completed our job of boob ytrapping it. The ROK 2d Infantry was drawing back at this time. As these men mo ved over the mountain which the tunnel cut through, the enem y tried to use the tunnel to cut them of f. The first men ran into the boob y traps and some six or seven were killed. The pursuing par ty withdrew and star ted to move northeast in hopes of taking RJ 775928 and b locking the troops withdrawing south along the main highw ay. They ran into Minef ield 8 from the south and here lost ten or f ifteen more men. The group then withdrew to the northeast in confusion and did not further interfere. As our inf antry withdrew down the Yodok-tong road toward Hill 728, the enemy attacked banzai style and a re giment strong, through Minefields 2 and 3. These minefields had been built up to contain some five hundred antipersonnel mines, and w e had them co vered with small- arms fire. Rifle and machine-gun f ire did not stop the enem y, but the mines stopped them cold. They milled around for a fe w moments tr ying to find a passage, and the automatic w eapons and mines w ounded or killed five hundred. The attack soon stopped and our men withdre w without further interference. After this engagement and the shor tening of our line, w e continued cratering the roads and increasing our mines. The ROKs thereafter had great faith in minef ields, learning particularly that minef ields supplement other means of defense.

11. Recon Dailey MSgt. Warren F. Dailey, Sgt. Earl J . Cayemberg, and Cpl. El- mer L. Bar tley, 2d Engineer Combat Battalion. (Inter view by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Historical Detachment.)

The amount of timel y engineer suppor t that can be gi ven to the infantry squads depends g reatly on the speed of the engineer reconnaissance. During the operations of the 2d Infantr y Division along the Soyang River in the f irst week of April 1951, the 2d Engineer Combat Battalion kept a number of agg ressive engineer reconnaissance teams searching for new access roads through the mountains and for obstacles requiring engineer clearing. Two of these engineer reconnaissance teams w ere commanded by MSgt. Warren F. Dailey and Sgt. James G. Sulzer . Sergeant Dailey’s as- Corps of Engineers 35 sistants were Sgt. Earl J . Cayemberg (radio operator) and Cpl. Elmer L. Bartley (driver). The teams moved out from the engineer battalion at Samsong-dong on the mor ning of 2 April and headed to ward Chun- chon. On the w ay they reconnoitered two lateral roads, w hich had been constructed by the Marines, to see if there w as any way to continue the roads across the mountains. There was not.

The teams reached Chunchon at 1530 and reconnoitered se veral roads to the east. ( 1) The roads soon dwindled into trails. That night the two teams stayed with the 8th Engineer Combat Battalion (1st Ca v- alry Division). At 0715, 3 April, the teams in vestigated roads east of Chunchon and south of the So yang River. (2) At Chamjan-ni the teams split, and Sulzer headed nor th to the ri ver to look for a ford. He found the ri ver was too swift and deep. Ser geant Dailey covered the roads to the east and southeast, only to f ind they ended in trails against the shar p hills. At 1200 the teams rendezv oused (2) and were joined by Lt. Henr y P. Leighton, who came to recei ve their repor t. He told them to recheck the first two roads. A power line crossed the mountains and the battalion commander hoped it w ould be paralleled b y a usable trail. In an y case, 36 Combat Support in Korea the teams were to remain in the Chunchon area and attach themselv es to Company B as soon as it ar rived. The teams were then to reconnoiter the main supply route leading east from Chunchon to Yanggu. The teams rechecked the roads. An investigation of the po wer line disclosed that the to wers had probably been packed into the mountains on mules. Not e ven a jeep could follo w the rough trail. The teams checked other roads on foot, and then retur ned to Chunchon for the night. On 4 April, the two teams took note of roads and bridges through Chunchon. The sixteen-span bridge o ver the Soyang River had been blown. The teams crossed on an impro vised bridge b uilt by the 8th En- gineers and continued their reconnaissance eastw ard until they came to a minefield that had destro yed a tank and a tr uck. Following a temporary bypass around the minef ield, the teams continued dri ving along the road between columns of men of the 23d Infantry. By 1530 the teams reached the edge of a huge, hand-dug crater— 20 feet long and 30 feet deep. The high g round northeast of the crater was still in enem y hands and the inf antry were fighting in the hills, especially on Hill 568. Sulzer and Daile y walked with the inf antry along the road and found a g reat number of obstacles. There were antipersonnel mines, wooden box mines, felled trees, and r ubble blown onto the road. Near a small bridge an enem y machine gun opened f ire and hit three infantrymen. The infantry started to withdraw. The engineers ran back along the road until the y were masked from the f ire, and then walked carefully along. Several times they saw suspicious holes in the road and by probing with their carbine ba yonets the men w ould feel the mine cases. Sergeant Dailey removed detonator caps from two. At their jeeps the engineers wrote up their reconnaissance repor t, but as they could not mak e contact with battalion b y radio, they called Company B. The company commander infor med them that he had a message for them. When the teams reached the Compan y B command post east of Chunchon, the company commander relayed the order that Ser geant Sulzer was to retur n to the battalion command post with maps and reports of the past three da ys. At 2200 Dailey received a message to continue the reconnaissance. Next morning Dailey and his men retur ned to the crater . The 8th Engineers had made some temporar y repairs and a jeep could cross it- with difficulty. There was evidence of road mines, and one destro yed trailer showed their effectiveness. An infantry officer told Sergeant Dailey that “French Road” was heavily mined, so Dailey and Cor poral Bartley dismounted before inspecting it. They found mines—and mangled bodies. Some mor tar rounds Corps of Engineers 37 were fired at the engineers, and the y turned back, their pace increasing when small-arms fire kicked up dust at their feet. Hea vy fighting continued on Hill 568, and six air strikes hit the crest. By 0900 the team w as driving east along the main road. The Anti- tank and Mine Platoon of the 23d Inf antry was sweeping the road for mines and blasting trees and boulders out of the road. Some distance for - ward, the team met Lt. Russell O . Blosser with another reconnaissance party from the 2d Engineer Battalion. The lieutenant’s jeep had a flat tire. While repairs were under way a mor tar concentration str uck near by. The engineers took co ver in a ditch b ut later, when they had repaired the tire, mo ved the vehicles back out of sight. Lieutenant Blosser and Sergeant Bailey moved eastward on foot. At a def ile in the road the engineers met infantr y observers and several tanks. Artillery rounds str uck near the tanks, and the engineers had to duck as best the y could. F orward of the def ile the road w as cratered. Lieutenant Blosser instr ucted Sergeant Dailey to retur n to the jeeps and radio Compan y B to send forw ard a D 7 bulldozer, four tr uckloads of sandbags, and a platoon of engineers. The message was sent, the work done, and that afternoon traffic continued along the road. In the after noon Sergeant Dailey and Cor poral Bartley moved beyond the def ile to within three hundred yards of the enem y-held village of Naepyong-ni, and then w orked northward on a small trail to Hachon. Much of this reconnaissance w as through enemy territory. Minefields and trail conditions were recorded. Recon Dailey (Dailey, Cayemberg, and Bar tley) continued to oper - ate with or ahead of the infantr y for four more da ys before they were relieved. Their operation was typical. Their results were speedy suppor t by the engineers and rapid advance by the infantry.

12. Inexpedient Expedients Lt. Norman R. Rosen, 10th Engineer Combat Battalion

Field expedients are essential to combat engineer operations, especially when supplies are critical as the y were in Korea. But some units disregarded sound militar y engineering principles in their use of expedients. When an engineer replaces a bridge with a tw elve-inch cul- vert and uses rubble fill, this isn’t expediency—it’s ignorance. In February 1951 the 3d Inf antry Division was advancing toward the Han River. The railhead for the di vision was to be mo ved up from Suwon to Anyang-ni. This move would reduce the tr uck haul of di vision 38 Combat Support in Korea supplies by twenty miles. To make the shift possib le, Company D, 10th Engineer Combat Battalion, w as given the mission of opening the road. At one point w e lost time because someone had used an “e xpedient.” A twelve-foot concrete bridge had been dropped , probably in the summer of 1950. Later the road w as opened again. The stream was a small trickle during some seasons, a s wift-flowing body of w ater during others. When the concrete deck of the bridge fell it left a three- or four -inch opening. The working party that opened the road made no repairs, but filled the void with r ubble and trash. This was adequate at the time, since the winter of 1950 w as dry, but with the rains coming in the spring of 1951 we knew we had to build a better structure. When we started to remove the f ill from the hole w e ran into real difficulty. The space between the ab utments was too nar row to use a bulldozer. Besides, there w as limited traffic on the road and w e had to keep it open. This forced us to clear the stream bed by hand. If the f ill in this case had been g ravel or rock it w ouldn’t have been so bad, but we had to e xtract an ox cart, sand and rice bags, com stalks, straw mats, and other items. All of these had become w edged and frozen in place. We had to use a full squad of men for a da y and a half to clear the rubble. Each half of the bridge took less than four hours to build. In this job, like many others, the clearing of the site on w hich an expedient had been used took more time than the building of a ne w structure.

13. The Delay at K-2 Major Walter C. Henderson, 822d Engineer Aviation Battal- ion

The 822d Engineer Aviation Battalion was located on Okina wa in July 1950. We were special-category troops assigned to the Twentieth Air Force. Early in July we received orders from Headquar ters, Far East Air Force, placing us on temporar y duty with F ifth Air Force in Korea. It was intimated that w e would be away only sixty days, and we were told we could leave our f amilies, footlockers, and winter clothing on Okinawa until we returned. When I retur ned to the United States in August 1951, the 822d was still in K orea. During all of these four teen months the 822d had had all or par t of its forces at the K-2 airstrip near Taegu. We had, however, received so many changes of plans that much of our time w as wasted. On 5 July 1950, the battalion commander (Lt.Col. F rank J. Polich) Corps of Engineers 39 and I flew to Tokyo to the headquar ters of Far East Air Force. Here we were oriented by the director of installations, and w e submitted repor ts on the status of our battalion and requisitioned equipment. We explained that half of our personnel w ere due to retur n to the United States immediately, either on completion of their o verseas tours, or for dischar ge. Later regulations issued by the Depar tment of Defense pre vented this exodus from taking place but left us with a serious morale problem. On 8 July Colonel Polich and I accompanied the directors of installations of Far East Air Force and Fifth Air Force to the K-2 airstrip. This was the f inal reconnaissance for the Tokyo officers, a preliminar y one for us. Colonel P olich and I remained at the f ield when the others left, so that we could continue our inspection and begin our planning. Our first view of K-2 sho wed us an old Japanese sod-and-g ravel runway, its surf ace scarred with pot holes. The strip was 300 feet wide and 3,800 feet long. Our job w as to repair it so it could handle “moderate traffic for a minimum time. ” After the repairs w ere complete we were to lengthen the r unways to 5,000 feet so that our combat planes could use the field. Our instructions stated that the w ork would have to proceed without halting the air traf fic. This made our job more dif ficult. We divided the strip to mak e two runways. The one closest to the control to wer was designated A, and the far one B. Work began on 18 Jul y. Dust and the psycholo gical effect of the wing tips were our earliest prob lems. We regraded the crown and hauled fill on Strip A so that e ventually the center of this strip w as eighteen inches above its for mer level. Near the w est end of the old r unways, we encountered “Air Force blue” clay—the soft silt that mak es up the rice paddies, A truck could r un over it once, but repeated trips w ould break through the thin cr ust and no bottom could be found. Of course, this would not car ry a heavy plane. To strengthen the strip w e excavated five to ten feet, and f illed the pit with cr ushed rock. This made the end of the runway an island of gravel in a sea of soft clay. We had our reno vation completed and the pierced-steel planking laid on Strip A by 7 August. We opened Strip A to traffic and closed Strip B. On this second r unway we intended not onl y to renovate but also to lengthen it to f ive thousand feet. When we finished Strip B w e expected to lengthen Strip A. Remembering the soil conditions w e had encountered in Strip A, we decided to build the e xtension above the g round on a base of cr ushed- rock fill. Although this caused a slight g rade increase, it w ould not raise any problems as long as the r unway did not e xceed six thousand feet. We didn’t anticipate the airstrip going be yond that distance because of the natural obstacles at each end. Before we had lengthened Strip B to f ive thousand feet, the tactical 40 Combat Support in Korea situation forced us to e vacuate the battalion to Pusan. Here w e began the K-9 strip and , as time mo ved on, we began to suspect our sta y in Korea would not be limited to sixty days.

When the tactical situation at Taegu improved we moved Able Company back to the K-2 strip. Shor tly thereafter they had to e vacuate again, and on their second retur n to Taegu they were ambushed b y North Korean guerrillas. Able Company remained detached from the battalion and continued at K-2 w hile we went north to Pyongyang and then made the retreat. By F ebruary 1951, the full battalion w as again assembled and working at K-2. Under changed specif ications Able Company had lengthened both runways to 5,700 feet, and then remained at the f ield working on the overrun. But no w we received new specifications requiring us to lengthen the r unways to 9,000 feet with 1,000-foot o verruns at each end. K-2 was to become a jet-fighter field. An airstrip of this length ma y seem unusual for f ighter aircraft, but jets make this and other impro vements necessary. Jets do not ha ve the rapid take-off and climb of propeller -driven aircraft, especially in the combat zone, where they are heavily loaded. The runways have to be strong and smooth since jets ha ve very narrow tires which are inflated up to 190 pounds. The narrowness of the tires gi ves a very high weight per square inch on the g round and calls for a strong surf ace. Smoothness is necessary because of vulnerability of high-pressure tires, and the high landing speeds (often more than tw o hundred miles an hour) of jets. Another important factor is the sensitivity of jets to dust. All of these f actors make the jet airstrip ideall y one with an asphalt surface covered by pierced-steel planking. Yet even this surface has its difficulties. Some jet models lose a good deal of fuel on tak e-off, and this fuel has a cor rosive action on asphalt. Tail blast and heat from later models cause the surfacing to deteriorate. When we got out ne w specifications to push the r unways of K-2 to nine thousand feet, w e ran into tw o types of prob lems. The first were Corps of Engineers 41 those imposed by Nature; the second , those arising from the piecemeal planning. To the east of our r unways was a hill mass w hich already presented a dangerous glide obstacle. To extend the f ield in that direction w as out of the question. Going w est we encountered a village and a ri ver. We dug a new bed for the ri ver, looping it about tw o miles around the end of the field and overrun. We had to demolish the village. The piecemeal planning prob lem gave us the most troub le. In Au- gust we had raised our g rade level at the 3,800-foot mark to o vercome the unstable soil conditions. No w we were going to ha ve to lower the grade level so we could cross the old stream bed without placing an un- economical amount of f ill. Fortunately, the drainage ditches w e had dug to the nor th of the strip had stopped the under ground water from reaching the for mer rice paddies that w ere now our airstrip. The soil was now more stable, but we had to go back to the 3,800-foot mark, tak e out all our original f ill, and star t excavating below the old g round level. Our former runway extension work was not only a complete loss, but w e also lost additional time taking out the fill we had hauled in. By the time I left K orea the r unway jobs had pro gressed to the point where the surf acing was to be applied. The asphalt was planned to be three and a half inches deep, and the pierced-steel planking to cover it was already stored in piles on each side of the r unway. At this time, however, specifications were again changed to mak e the asphalt six inches deep and to appl y the pierced-steel planking onl y to the last five hundred feet of the r unway. When you consider that the 1,200,- 000 square feet of pierced steel planking that w as not to be used at this site is both hea vy and b ulky, you can imagine the tremendous w aste of manpower and transportation that was involved. The building of K-2 took more than a y ear. Admittedly it was a big job and would have taken a lot of time and ef fort under ideal conditions. But the constant changes of plans led us to f ill where later we were to dig, and haul pierced-steel planking to places w here we were going to use only asphalt. Such changes made K-2 agonizingl y slow and expensive. It also meant that jets could not come to K-2 w hen they were first needed. If the high-le vel planners had anticipated the f inal product, our project would have developed differently. 42 Combat Support in Korea

14. Equipment Without Operators Capt. James E. McClure, Hea vy Equipment Maintenance and Repair Officer, 76th Engineer Construction Battalion

The 76th Engineer Constr uction Battalion w as on Okina wa when we were alerted to move to Korea. All weak equipment was exchanged and only the most agg ressive officers and best-trained men w ere taken with the unit. In K orea we made a splendid record , but there w ere some occurrences that we are prone to forget. From the moment our adv ance party arrived in Korea, the battalion was given an o verload of w ork. To complete our missions w e over- worked our men and equipment. I shall not concer n myself with the loss of morale and ef ficiency resulting from the long hours of w ork, or from assigning men the maintenance responsibility for three or more pieces of heavy equipment. I will onl y tell how the overload affected the equipment. In August 1950 Ammunition Supply Point No. 1, near Pusan, had to be relocated to allo w the constr uction of an Air Force runway. The area chosen for the ne w ASP was in the mountains tw o miles from the unloading piers. Ammunition bunkers were needed immediately since seven ammunition ships lay at anchor waiting to unload their cargos. The engineering officer of Pusan Lo gistical Command assigned the construction of the ammunition bunkers to the 76th. He told our battalion commander (Lt. Col. Thomas K. Fuller ton) that twelve additional D7 crawler tractors were available at the engineer depot and must be drawn to increase the battalion’ s work capacity. He ordered a 24-hour schedule until enough bunk ers were completed to unload the anchored ships. A battalion staf f conference follo wed. During the discussion I pointed out that no sur plus of trained equipment operators e xisted, and that the additional tractors w ould impose a hardship on the battalion without notably increasing production. Without trained operators there would be no pre ventive maintenance, and without that the tractors would not operate v ery long. In spite of these ar guments, the directive to the battalion w as specific and the colonel had no option b ut to order: “We will have to utilize the cooks and compan y clerks, if necessar y, for operation of the additional equipment.” As equipment operators w e selected car penters and other men w ho had mechanical skills, and held a class on operation and pre ventive maintenance. We could only hope that the men w ould learn enough to get them by. Then the twelve D7 tractors were dispatched to the project Corps of Engineers 43 site, and three qualif ied mechanics accompanied the g roup to suppor t the operation. After one day’s operation the mechanics w ere swamped with deadlined tractors. The power-control units were all going bad , the g rease seals were blowing, and the operating bands w ere overheating. There was no g reat showing of completed ammunition bunkers after for ty- eight hours of continuous operation. In addition, half the tractors w ere out of action. The intense pressure from abo ve to complete the project continued. Another battalion staff conference was held and it w as decided to work two ten-hour shifts dail y, and devote two hours of each shift to instr uction and preventive maintenance. This prevented some tractors from deadlining. The work continued slowly but we kept ahead of the ammunition people because the y had serious dif ficulties in their own operation. On 25 August, Pusan Logistical Command again assigned us a ne w project with top priority . This was to build a PO W inclosure, which involved draining a rice paddy and eliminating its lo wer areas with ten thousand cubic yards of f ill. Unfortunately, the nearest f ill obtainable had to be hauled five miles from a burrow pit. Another meeting of the battalion staf f was called to discuss the method of star ting this project at a time w hen all of our battalion’ s personnel and dump tr ucks were otherwise engaged. Since we already had eight to ten top-priority projects assigned us, there w as no reason to halt one to advance another. Additional dump tr ucks were available in the ordnance depot but again we had no drivers. After much discussion, Colonel Fuller ton accepted a tentati ve plan. Forty-three dump tr ucks would be drawn from the ordnance depot, and Korean civilian personnel w ould be trained as dri vers. These trucks would be divided into two platoons, each to be controlled b y a U.S. enlisted man with dump-tr uck experience. All Korean drivers would be kept in convoy with the enlisted super visor driving the lead tr uck and controlling the speed. F inally, motor stables would be held dail y, with the supervisor calling out each pre ventive maintenance point to be checked. Korean interpreters would relay the instr uctions to the dri vers. This would insure daily preventive maintenance ser vice on the K orean- operated equipment. This plan was approved and put into operation. It w orked very well for two months, with eighty per cent of the dump tr ucks serviceable and dispatched. Some time w as lost at the e xcavator while waiting to load, but the control w hich the convoy plan gave us appeared to me to justify the loss of time. Colonel Fuller ton, the S 3, and I held se veral con- ferences concerning the time lost, but all ag reed it was necessary to follow the original plan, 44 Combat Support in Korea In October I had to be gone for tw o days. When I retur ned I found a new plan was in operation. No w, each Korean driver was individually responsible for his tr uck, and there w as no immediate control b y the enlisted supervisors. Trucks moved independently and the super visors had little control over the forty-three trucks. Three weeks after the initiation of this ne w policy, half the dump trucks were deadlined. These repairs often w ere necessary because the Koreans had not perfor med any preventive maintenance. The trucks, moving independently, were driven at excessive speeds and there w as a high toll of brok en springs and b lown-out tires. The Korean drivers visited their homes for hours, and e ven sold their gasoline. F ew of the drivers seemed to have any sense of responsibility. As the efficiency of the operation declined rapidl y and the number of deadlined trucks rose, the S 3 came to me to complain about the tr ucks not operating. I replied that the original polic y of super vised operation and maintenance should be immediately re-established. The operations officer, thinking only of immediate pro gress, answered: “It can’t be done. We lose too much time that way.” I asked: “What are you accomplishing by your present policy?” The S3 retorted: “You’re the maintenance of ficer, It’s up to y ou to keep the trucks rolling.” 45

PART II Transportation Corps

1. Critical Transportation Col. John K. McCor mick, G4; Major William H. Barker, Assist- ant Provost Marshal; Capt. Jasper N . Erskine, Highway Regulat- ing Officer, X Cor ps; Major Har ry J. Dodd, Executive Officer, 52d Transportation Truck Battalion. (Condensed from an ar ticle by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Historical Detachment, based on inter - views with officers of X Corps.)

Highway transportation has always been critical in K orea. The limited road net has been brok en down by heavy traffic, and roads through the mountains are often nar row and usable only for one-way traffic. Distances are long and turnarounds lengthy. When the enemy attack began in May 1951, X Cor ps found it dif ficult to car ry the greatly increased ammunition tonnages necessar y to de- fend itself while maintaining supply and troop mo vements at the same time. The 52d Transportation Truck Battalion, which included elements of seventeen truck companies, suppor ted X Cor ps. Temporary truck organizations were developed whenever it became necessary. In mid-May the transpor tation officer of X Cor ps was directed to furnish forty trucks to assist the 3d Inf antry Division’s move from south of Seoul to Soksa-ri. Anticipating that the loss of for ty vehicles would slow the delivery of supplies, the G 4 of X Cor ps (Col. John K. McCormick) instructed the chiefs of X Cor ps’ technical ser vices to canvass their units for tr ucks not hauling essential car gos. The result was a 3 1 collection of /4- and 2- /2-ton trucks and dump tr ucks, lowboys and equipment trailers. These were drawn from the 4th Signal Battalion, the 1st and 2d Mobile Army Surgical Hospitals, the 520th Quar termaster Battalion, the 69th Ordnance Battalion, and the 8224th Engineer Con- struction Group. The fifty to sixty tr ucks thus gathered were called “the Truck Bank.” Military police check points w ere set up b y X Cor ps near each ammunition point. All empty tr ucks going nor th, except emergency vehi- 47 48 Combat Support in Korea cles, were loaded with ammunition. Each dri ver was given a note stating that his tr uck had been commandeered , and giving the amount of time it had been used. An average of twenty-five vehicles each day were pressed into service this way. Under the direction of the 52d Truck Battalion, a separate tr uck group was established to haul ammunition e xclusively. Many of the v e- hicles were taken from units of the 52d , others were borrowed from X Corps units. A control point for ammunition tr ucks was established near the railhead at Wonju. To prevent confusion at the ammunition suppl y point, vehicles were dispatched in serials of f ive or ten. Nor mally twenty vehicles an hour entered the ammunition dump. At the control point a driver could get a meal from a 24-hour kitchen, and a ser vice station provided second-echelon maintenance. Once the ammunition tr ucks were loaded at Wonju, they drove to ASP No. 50 at Hongchon, Here the ammunition w as usually transferred—from tail gate onto tail g ate—to the vehicles of the using unit. For accounting and safety , it was against operating procedure for trucks to go directl y from Wonju to the front lines, b ut it is belie ved that many of them did. On the driver fell the b urden of long hours of w ork. Normally each truck had two assigned drivers, and the shift w as twelve hours. Many drivers, however, stayed at the w heel to the limits of endurance, and some drove eighteen or twenty hours daily. Special operations required around-the-clock dri ving. To replace vehicles lost, a g roup of ordnance of ficers and men w ere flown to Pusan. They returned 104 tr ucks and 30 trailers from Pusan to Hongchon (332 miles) in 48 hours. Road conditions made dri ving slow and left little time for rest. On another occasion, X Cor ps had only a few hours in w hich to gather three hundred tr ucks to make troop movements. The 52d Truck Battalion furnished 200 vehicles, and militar y police commandeered another 94. There was not enough time to notify the units that their vehicles had been tak en, and no ar rangements were made for g asoline or for feeding the dri vers. The individual driver had to scrounge for his own supply. This system of obtaining transpor tation was used on other occasions. Many other expedients had to be used w hen the demand for transpor - tation was so g reat. Ordnance companies k ept maintenance patrols on the road twenty-four hours a da y, and light aircraft w ere used to spot disabled vehicles. Repair of the v ehicles was accomplished on the spot, when possible, or the v ehicles were returned to the shops for major repair. Traffic control was carefully planned and super vised. In addition to Transportation Corps 49 standard highway control, light aircraft w ere used to direct militar y police to traffic jams. On one occasion, the cor ps commander’s personal helicopter was used to patrol the roads and to assist in traf fic control. X Corps approached one hundred per cent utilization of its tr uck capacity.

2. Truck Platoon in Korea Lt. Alfred J. Catania, 377th Transportation Truck Company

Late in July 1950 a tele gram cut shor t my leave and retur ned me to Fort Sill. There I found m y unit, the 377th Transportation Truck Company, was on overseas alert. Our assigned men w ere well trained, for we had completed an e x- ercise only four months before. The training and capability of our replacements was still unknown. As we received new vehicles we ran them through our compan y motor shop, then through post ordnance, which prepared them for o verseas shipment. Trailers were then loaded on and strapped to the beds of the tr ucks, and the tr ucks were loaded onto flatcars. This shipment preceded the compan y and was not seen again until after we arrived in Japan. We landed at Yokohama on 28 August and were temporarily attached to Yokohama Motor Command. A few days later we received notice that some of our tr ucks had ar rived at the por t. It took some ten days to get all our v ehicles since they came in se veral vessels and were unloaded at different piers. While our vehicles were arriving in driblets we were warned to stand ready to load on one da y’s notice. This brought about confusion, as we had to requisition equipment from Yokohama Motor Command, and in most cases our o wn equipment ar rived in time to be loaded. In- ventories, overages, turn-ins, and paper work resulted. While at Yokohama all our v ehicles were put into r unning condition and combat-loaded. During the second w eek of September our personnel boarded a transpor t, and on about D plus 8 the y were unloaded at Inchon. The next day our vehicles arrived and were put to work. The beaches at Inchon w ere piled high with equipment. We hauled supplies over the causeway from Wolmi-do, from the beaches, and from shipside in the tidal basin. Our tr ucks operated around the clock. Each truck had two assigned drivers, and each w orked a twelve-hour shift. The demand for transpor tation was so g reat that we did not ha ve time to perfor m second-echelon maintenance. F irst-echelon maintenance 50 Combat Support in Korea was performed at the loading or unloading points, w hile the drivers waited in line. The company wrecker was posted near the tidal basin where all of our tr ucks had to pass. It car ried parts and lubricants, and had two mechanics waiting to make emergency repairs and f ix flat tires. At Inchon we joined several newly arrived truck companies to form the 52d Transportation Truck Battalion. One da y in mid-October, however, our company was relieved from the tidal basin haul at 1900, and departed for Pusan at 0200 the follo wing morning. We were loaded with troops and equipment and made the forced march of 350 miles in about 36 hours. Ev ery vehicle made it under its o wn power. We ran into sporadic enemy fire north of Taegu several times, but all v ehicles kept moving and sustained no damage. At Pusan the compan y had time to do some needed maintenance work. We left our tr ucks loaded and ready for mo vement to the trans- ports. But orders were changed. We had to unload our car go, haul troops, then reload and dri ve to dockside. This kept us plenty busy for the f ive days at Pusan. Once on board the transpor ts we lay at anchor some nine or ten da ys before we steamed to Wonsan, in Nor th Korea, where we landed on 1 November 1950. The trucks were transferred to LSTs b y the ships’ gear, and some were damaged, since the transfer w as made in heavy seas. Our first mission ashore w as to deliver the cargo in our v ehicles. This included 37 tr uckloads to the 121st Ev acuation Hospital at Ham- hung, some 75 miles nor theast. When we applied for road clearance, X Corps directed us to k eep the vehicles in the Wonsan area as the enemy had set up a roadb lock fifteen miles north. Marines cleared the road, and the next day we drove to Hamhung. We returned the following day, and the Wonsan–Hamhung run became our regular route. Just before midnight of 5 No vember, the company was ordered to furnish an officer, a driver, and a jeep to the transpor tation officer of X Corps at 0600 ne xt morning. I received the assignment. I repor ted and was informed I would be the commander of a con voy assembling at 0700 to mo ve part of the 65th Inf antry from Wonsan to Yonghung, about forty miles nor th. I was to control for ty-six vehicles assembled from various corps units, I met m y vehicles and at the same time reported to the CO of the 65th Infantr y. He took the v ehicles, parceled them out to his battalions and companies, and I had nothing more to do than follow the convoy and retur n the tr ucks when the march w as over. The convoy left Wonsan at 0930 b ut did not ar rive at Yonghung until 1600. The movement was slow, and the con voy stopped time and again to investigate groups of civilians near the road , and occasionally to send out a patrol or engage in a small fire fight. At Yonghung the troops w ere unloaded in dif ferent areas. I designated a rendezvous in Yonghung and waited for my trucks to as- Transportation Corps 51 semble. The first trucks arriving at the rendezv ous I moved out as a serial at 1700. It w as 1800 before the rest w ere ready to go. The return trip should not ha ve taken over two hours, but before I could clear the town I had to w ait for a long Marine tank con voy. I was delayed over an hour and it w as dark before m y serial left Yonghung. My jeep w as the last vehicle. After we passed Kowon, about halfway to Wonsan, I noticed a f ire up ahead. I doub led the stopped con voy and at the head of the column I 1 found a 2- / 2-ton truck, loaded with 55-gallon dr ums of gasoline, on fire. The truck had been b urning for some time since the dr ums were already beginning to explode. The flaming vehicle was in the middle of a narrow, one-lane causeway, with rice paddies on each side. My lead v e- hicle was halted at a fork in the road. The burning truck was on the left fork, which was the main road. I w as quite sure from m y previous trips that the right fork w ent through a village, bent to the left, crossed a bridge, and joined the main road about tw o miles away. I told the ser - 52 Combat Support in Korea geant in the lead v ehicle to reconnoiter the right fork to the main road , checking especially the capacity of the bridge. He took se veral men with him in his jeep, and on his retur n said the road w as wide enough 1/ and the bridge strong enough to support a 2- 2-ton truck. The convoy then proceeded b y the right fork, but stopped about a mile farther on. Again I doubled the column to see w hat was wrong. The sergeant told me things didn’ t look right to him. Although the civilians were under curfew, a civilian had stood b y the road as he dro ve through the village and w aved the convoy on. Farther on, seven or eight ci vilians were standing in the road , but scattered when they came within the headlight beams. I told the men to remount and continue on, but at that moment we were struck by small-arms fire from both sides of the road and in front. We were forced to the rear , and I instr ucted the men to stay on the road and f ire at anyone who approached from the f ields on each side of us. This was to prevent our men from f iring at one another in the dark. Making a defense with these 25 to 30 men w as virtually impossible. I didn’t know them, since the y were not from the 377th. Some of them had no w eapons. One tr uck mounted a caliber 50 machine gun, and I ordered the dri ver to retur n fire with it. He got into position and pulled at the operating handle, then declared that the w eapon was jammed. Later, the enemy turned this gun on us, and I belie ve that driver just didn’t know how to use his w eapon. In the circumstances I could do nothing but order the men to mo ve to the rear of the con voy. At the tail of the column I ordered the last four trailers unhitched , the trucks turned, and the men to load up and dri ve out. Three vehicles were turned around, loaded, and moved out. Then I discovered I was alone with the four th truck! All the men had left in the f irst three. I got into the four th truck, started the engine, and tur ned it around. As I did so a Nor th Korean ran alongside. His w hite clothing stood out clearly in the night. I pointed m y pistol at him and f ired twice. I either hit him or scared him, because he dropped back, and I drove away. Half a mile do wn the road I passed tw o of the tr ucks that had preceded me. Both w ere in a ditch, and one w as on its side. Then I came to the third tr uck, which was halted and b locking the road. A hail of f ire began to hit m y vehicle from the left and I belie ve a hundred men w ere firing their rifles from an embankment. Bullets splintered the hood and the cab of the tr uck, and I felt one nick m y leg. I jumped from the truck on the right side and ran through the rice paddies. I put a good mile between me and the scene of the ambush, but I sa w none of the men of the convoy in that distance. Then I lay low for the night. I heard the enem y soldiers driving the vehicles during the night, and searching everywhere for our dri vers. Early in the mor ning I heard someone walking about, and I sa w he was an American. I told him to Transportation Corps 53 be quiet and to join me, but he w as so disgusted and tired he didn’ t seem to care. He said he had been captured b y two North Koreans during the night, and that the y had debated w hat to do with him. One ob viously wanted to kill him, the other w as for letting him go. F inally, they relieved him of his v aluables, hit him o ver the head with his o wn rifle, kicked him, and let him go. Late in the night the guer rillas burned all the v ehicles, since they could not take them up into the mountains with them. During this night Kowon was recaptured, and the 65th Inf antry and the 96th F ield Artil- lery Battalion at Yonghung were both under heavy attack. When the civilians began to come out of doors ne xt morning I figured everything had quieted do wn. The enlisted man and I forced a civilian to guide us to the main road , and we started walking toward Wonsan. We hid when a jeep came along until w e were sure it w as carrying Americans, then we hailed it. The ride took us to X Cor ps headquarters, where I reported to the transportation officer, and later to G2. I found I w as not wounded in the le g as I supposed , but I had bullet holes through both trouser le gs. I never learned what happened to the men of that con voy, for they came from so man y different units. Those who escaped just retur ned “home.” My jeep dri ver came back a da y after I did, with a story that matched mine. Two days later, the 377th mo ved the equipment of X Cor ps headquarters to Hamhung. We were billeted in that city and w orked directly under the cor ps transportation officer until the 52d Transportation Truck Battalion and its other companies joined us. About the third w eek in November we were attached to the 7th Inf antry Division and the company moved to Pukchong and w orked directly under that division’s G4. We moved rations, ammunition, and gasoline for the 7th Di vision over one of the highest and most dif ficult mountain ranges in K orea. The main supply road was only one lane wide o ver a mountain that w as 11 miles uphill and 9 miles do wnhill (going nor th). MPs with telephones and radios w ere posted on each side of the mountain and controlled the traffic. Convoys moved as quickly as they were loaded, and the south-bound trip usuall y carried troops, prisoners, or empty g asoline drums. A temperature of 10 belo w zero in the mountains did not contribute to the comfort of any trip. On 27 November I was instructed to take my truck platoon to X Corps headquarters at Hamhung. There I was to meet a 7th Di vision liaison officer and receive further instructions. In Hamhung the liaison officer told me I w as to shuttle par ts of two infantry regiments to the Changjin Reservoir area. On 28 November I loaded a reinforced inf antry company of 325 men and headed for a small to wn 15 or 20 miles nor th of. Hamhung. I 54 Combat Support in Korea unloaded the troops and w ent back for a second shuttle. I w as met by a messenger who informed me I w as to take the same reinforced company and move it to its re gimental CP on the highw ay east of Changjin Reservoir. The instructions were rather vague as to the CP’ s location, but I returned and remounted the troops. About five miles f arther north, MPs stopped the con voy and delayed it for about tw o hours while engineers cleared the road ahead of a landslide. While we were waiting on the road some Nor th Korean soldiers were captured. They were walking down the road in ci vilian clothes b ut our KATUSA1 troops spotted them. We inquired why our men w ere so certain, and they replied that the “ci vilians” had their hair cut—strictl y a military operation in K orea. Interrogated, the prisoners admitted their military identities; one claimed he w as from a Nor th Korean regiment, the other said he was attached to a Chinese unit. At 2100 we approached Koto-ri and were halted by U.S. marines. We were told the enem y had a roadb lock just a thousand yards f arther up the road. Our con voy pulled into the Marine perimeter for the night, and the following morning Col. Lewis B. Puller, USMC, for med all troops in the vicinity into a task force. This included a Marine compan y, our reinforced company, and a compan y of British Ro yal Marine Corps commandos. An artillery barrage began, and then U .S. Marine jet fighters plastered the hills on both sides of the road. I w atched the show as I waited at the U.S. Marine command post. At about 1400 I w as ordered to a rendezv ous point, but on ar riving there found the inf antry were still f ighting. I stopped the con voy a few hundred yards behind the infantr y and went forward on foot to the company commander. I located him in his gull y CP and told him I had instructions to car ry him up the road. He replied that he w as still under fire and didn’t see how he could possib ly load up or continue through. He dispatched a messenger to infor m Colonel Puller of the situation. About two hours later a message came back, ag ain ordering the inf antry to load up and proceed. As a result of loading under f ire, the inf antry got all mix ed up and lost its tactical unity . Other convoys began moving at the same time, and we were soon mixed with Marine and Army trucks. The British commandos were riding with our marines. The trucks maintained a 50-to-100-yard inter val. There were frequent unexplained halts, and b y dark my vehicle had made onl y three miles. I walked forward during a halt to see the cause of the dela y. At this point the road w as running through a v alley some 500 or 600 yards wide, flanked by sharp-rising mountains. To the right of the road w as a narrow-gauge railroad in the scant f ifty yards between us and the slope. 1Korean Augmentation to the United States Army. Transportation Corps 55

To the left it w as almost f ive hundred yards to the incline, b ut a fast- flowing mountain stream di vided the distance. It w as very dark except for the period when the moon was directly over the valley. When I was some four hundred yards ahead of m y vehicle, I saw five or six Chinese soldiers w alking along the railroad track to our right. It was just light enough to identify their quilted unifor ms. I warned a nearby truckload of inf antrymen and they began searching the area with rifle f ire. I pitched a g renade in the direction w here I had last seen the enemy. This acted as a signal, and the Chinese be gan firing on us from the railroad and up on the mountainside to our right—all the way up and do wn the column. Rifles, machine guns, g renades and mortars, all east of the road , began striking the vehicles and men. Our trucks were widely sepa- rated and there was no g reat concentration of men at an y point. Near me were only a couple of m y own men and some infantr ymen. Throughout the night I did not see any of the inf antry officers, but our convoy was spread o ver three or four miles, and the y could have been anywhere in the column. Because of the confusion in loading, not e ven squads were together. I took command of everyone near me and directed the men to f all behind the tr ucks into the field west of the road. There was little cover, however, and it w as impossible to dig into the frozen ground. Casualties were mounting, and I w as wounded twice. I w as hit once in the back b y a shell fragment, and in the shoulder b y a caliber .45 slug that brok e my collar bone and lodged in m y neck. The pain was great. I thought I’d been hit in the neck, and an inf antryman even bandaged me there. He also g ave me a shot of mor phine to ease the pain. I had my head propped up on m y helmet and continued to gi ve what little control was possible in the situation. One of my men told me a tr uck in the middle of the v alley floor had a caliber .30 machine gun strapped to its fender and a bo x of ammunition under the seat. After the attack had be gun the dri ver had turned this vehicle around and had tried to mak e a break for it do wn the 56 Combat Support in Korea middle of the f ield, but had abandoned the attempt. As luck would have it, the tr uck was now in clear moonlight, in the direct line of f ire, and the machine gun w as strapped to the front fender on the side nearest the enemy. I called for v olunteers, fearing that if w e didn’t get the gun the enemy would. None of the inf antrymen would go, but one of m y truck drivers volunteered and made the trip. He reached the tr uck, crawled onto the near fender and reached o ver the hood to pull the machine gun from its position. He could not get the tripod. Then he got the box of ammunition from under the dri ver’s seat and retur ned. Throughout the night he f ired the machine gun from the hip, and it was an impor tant weapon in our defense. When he ran out of ammunition he threw the gun in a deep hole in the stream. This soldier was later awarded the Silver Star. With our heavy casualties, and a feeling the enem y was coming in on our flanks, I decided to f all back to the stream at about 0200. At 0430 it became clear w e could not remain there either . I told the men to split up, cross the stream, and head for the mountain behind. The numbing effect of the cold seemed to mak e it less ef fort just to remain where they were, and I f inally decided to mo ve on with just one of my truckers. I had to be helped to get m y head up, but then I could w alk. As the inf antry saw me go the y slowly moved out, waded the stream, and started up the hill. As I got f arther up the hill it de veloped that my own party would be three enlisted men and m yself. One of the tr uckers and the inf antryman with us w ere wounded. Only one driver was unhurt. He helped us along. After all that had gone on during the night, the inf antryman still clutched a blanket, and carried it with him. When we reached the hilltop it be gan to get light. I kne w our feet would freeze if w e did not gi ve them attention since w e had gotten them wet in wading the stream. I al ways carried a knife that w as fashioned from an old, cut-down cavalry saber, and we used this to cut the frozen laces of our boots. I hoped to tak e out the heavy, inner-liner socks and warm them next to my body, but they were so frozen to the boots that I could not get them out. I thre w away both socks and shoes. I used my pile-liner cap in place of one shoe and tied strips of b lanket around the other foot. The men did the same. Near daylight we became aware of another par ty near at hand. We were scared, but no w orse than the three marines w ho finally challenged us. We had been within f ifty yards of one another for some time without knowing it. I still laugh at the marine challenging us with his carbine. It had gotten w et when he crossed the stream and the bolt was a solid b lock of ice. He could no more ha ve shot me than he could have shot his dear old grandmother back in the States. None of the marines w as wounded, so I ask ed them to go back the Transportation Corps 57 three miles to the Marine perimeter and see if the y could get us some help. They agreed, but after a tw o-hour wait we became apprehen- sive. Finally, our small par ty began to move painfully back toward the Marine position. Soon it became apparent w e would have to retur n to the road to mak e the jour ney. We did so and marched straight do wn the road to K oto-ri. It was an unusual jour ney, for we knew the Chinese were all about us and w atching us walk. From near us the y fired at a helicopter that flew up the canyon. Yet they let us hobble past. When we reached the Marine perimeter at K oto-ri, I found that the town was surrounded. With the other w ounded I was placed on a stretcher in a tent, and sta yed there for three da ys. During the f irst two days rations were short and I got onl y one can of C rations and a couple of cups of fr uit juice. Food didn’t bother me much at that point, ho w- ever. On the third da y an airstrip w as opened and the food became much better. Light planes be gan to fly out the more seriousl y wounded, and I went out by that method. F rom Koto-ri I flew to Hamhung, then w as loaded on a C–54 for Japan. F rom Japan I was flown to the United States. November 1950 was a pretty rough month on the 377th. At the end of that period w e had only 21 vehicles left of our original 48. It w as pretty tough on m y platoons, too. In the ambush abo ve Koto-ri, 18 of my 30 men became casualties: 3 killed , 7 wounded, 8 missing. I noticed 4 of the missing on the PO W lists released b y the Chinese. They were carried as “members of the 7th Infantry Division.”

3. Amphibian Truck Company Capt. Robert J. Gilroy, 3d Transportation Amphibian Truck Company

The 74th Transportation Truck Company was based on Yoko- hama Motor Command. On 7 Jul y 1950 the unit w as inactivated and re- activated as the 8062d Transportation Amphibian Truck Company (Pro- visional). There had been only 3 officers and 94 enlisted men in the 74th, and these became the nucleus of the amphibian outfit. Immediately upon activation, the commanding of ficer (Capt. Rob- ert J. Gilroy) requested additional personnel and equipment, based on the new T/O&E. The company received 100 enlisted men from commands throughout Japan, and 2 additional of ficers. Even so, there w as only one person in the entire compan y—an enlisted man—who had been in an amphibian truck company before. The company did not recei ve any mechanics experienced in repairing amphibian tr ucks (DUKWs), nor 58 Combat Support in Korea did it receive additional drivers to handle the 71 v ehicles the company received instead of its authorized 38. Almost as soon as the DUKWs w ere issued, Captain Gilroy was informed that his compan y was to par ticipate in the assault landings at Pohang-dong. The drivers were given only a short series of training talks before they were assigned the mission of loading the three f ield artillery battalions of the 1st Cavalry Division. On 18 July 1950 the 8062d landed at P ohang-dong—carrying the three battalions of 105-mm ho witzers, unloading them, and to wing them behind the DUKWs into their batter y positions. During the ne xt twenty- four hours the compan y moved from ship to shore thir ty thousand rounds of 105-mm ammunition, and untotaled amounts of rock et and small-arms ammunition. On 1 August 1950 the compan y was redesignated the 3d Transporta- tion Amphibian Truck Company, operating under T/O&E 55-37, augmented by one operating platoon. This called for 50 amphibian tr ucks, but the company continued to operate the 71 DUKWs originall y assigned, still with the same number of personnel. During 1-26 August we off-loaded approximately 26,500 tons of ammunition from nine v essels at Suyong. To handle this operation the company found it necessar y to set up, staf f, supervise, and operate traffic control systems used b y the tr uck companies assisting us; unloading points in the ammunition dump, traf fic nets and systems; and complete organization and control of the transfer points. Cranes w ere not available at the transfer points, and the A-frames organic to the DUKW company were used instead. Concurrent with the operations at Suy ong, the company sent detachments on various tactical missions. F ive are of especial impor tance. (1) On 8 August 1950 a detachment commanded b y Sgt. Lawrence Riley was sent to operate with the 1st Marine Brigade at Masan. This detachment unloaded supplies from LSTs, then e vacuated wounded from Masan under fire. (2) On 11 August 1950 a detachment commanded b y Sgt. James M. Simms was placed on detached ser vice with KMAG for operations at Yongdok. Here the men unloaded badl y needed ammunition from LSTs, then evacuated wounded to a hospital ship. All this was done under heavy fire. (3) On 16 August 1950 another detachment under Ser geant Riley joined KMAG to unload ur gently needed supplies from an LST into Pohang-dong. This mission was completed under f ire while the Nor th Koreans were attacking the to wn. Later these men assisted in the e vacuation of the town. (4) On 1 September 1950 a detachment under Sgt. Clifton B . Nel- son was placed on detached ser vice with the 9th Inf antry to car ry sup- Transportation Corps 59 plies across the Naktong Ri ver. Before this could be done, attacking North Korean forces made a withdra wal necessary. This detachment helped to evacuate friendly troops under fire. (5) On 4 September 1950 a detachment commanded b y Lt. Jack W. Ley departed on LSTs fo x the vicinity of P ohang-dong. There the LSTs lay off shore while Lieutenant Ley’s detachment evacuated 750 wounded South Korean soldiers from near the battle lines. On 19 September 1950 tw o platoons were ordered to the 2d In- fantry Division to assist the assault crossing of the Naktong Ri ver. One platoon, commanded by Lt. John F. Williams, reported to the 23d In- fantry. This platoon made a successful crossing. In the for ty hours following H-hour, it car ried the 23d Inf antry’s three battalions and their supplies across the ri ver. During this same period , by lashing a section of ponton bridge betw een two DUKWs, the platoon fer ried 138 tanks across the river. The platoon remained at the site for the ne xt eight days to operate a fer ry and to assist the engineers in constr ucting a bridge. A second platoon, under Lt. Claude P ayne, came under e xceedingly heavy fire. The crossing was made and fer ry service established, but at a cost of 2 killed , 4 wounded, and 10 DUKWs damaged and sunk b y enemy mortar and small-ar ms fire. All but one of these amphibian v e- hicles were salvaged and retur ned to ser vice. Lieutenant Payne’s operation was carried out under e xtremely adverse conditions. Mud- the DUKW’s worst enemy—lined both river banks. Enemy fire, ground haze, and lack of information hindered the mission. On 8 October 1950 an adv ance party and an operating platoon, all commanded by Lt. Carl E. Glenn, mo ved into Inchon and set up a bi v- ouac at Wolmi-do. There the 3d TAT Company commenced operations. As there was no site suitab le for DUKW operations, the 50th Engineer Port Construction Company was called to b last entry and exit points from almost-solid rock at the shore line. On 18 October 1950 the entire compan y was engaged in a sustained cargo haul from ship to a rail transfer point. As the operation continued , wear and tear be gan to tell on the v ehicles. In one period of tw enty-four hours, three DUKWs sank as a result of r usted-out hulls. Cpl. Elmo Anderson was awarded the Soldier’s Medal for sa ving the life of a South Korean laborer when the DUKW in w hich they were riding sank. Using 1 old, rebuilt vehicles, battling a 30-foot, 5- /2-knot tide, and making e x- tremely long water hauls, the compan y achieved a splendid mark in tonnage hauled. On 4 January 1951 a platoon commanded b y Lt. Charles A. Boughton was dispatched with elements of the 558th TAT Company to the Han River to assist in the withdra wal of friendly troops from the f ar shore. That same day, the rest of the compan y began to evacuate Wolmi-do. 60 Combat Support in Korea

When about half of its equipment had been loaded , the company was ordered to evacuate on any ship available because of the near ness of hostile forces. The personnel and equipment w ere loaded aboard three different vessels. Six DUKWs that had been condemned b y the Ordnance Corps were stripped of all usab le parts and then sunk in Inchon harbor at 0200 hours, 5 January. The ships sailed at about 0400. The main body of the 3d TAT Company arrived in Yokohama on 9 January 1951 and be gan reorganization. New equipment, including fifty new DUKWs, was received. The officer in charge of the reb uilding section of Fuchu Ordnance Center w as amazed when he lear ned of the operation of the old v ehicles formerly assigned to the compan y. He said that at the time those v ehicles were rebuilt he had felt it w ould not be feasible to employ them for any purpose except training.

4. Railhead at Masan Capt. Meade D. Wildrick, 8010th Army Unit, Transportation Military Railway Service

I arrived in Korea on 7 Jul y 1950 in a detachment from the 8010th Army Unit, Transportation Military Railway Service. Our force consisted of 19 of ficers and 90 enlisted men. These were not enough to have taken over the Korean railroads—even had we wanted to, or had had the authority. Instead, our g roup was split into ten traf fic-regulating teams. Three of these remained in Pusan, tw o went to Taegu, and one each went to Taejon, Yongchon, Kumchon, and Kyongju. How well we kept things moving can be seen from our record of those early days. We were told by the U.S. military advisory group to the Republic of Korea (KMAG) and the of ficials of the K orean Na- tional Railroads that w e would set a record if w e moved more than 12 trains a day north from Pusan. Actually, we soon dispatched 24 trains daily, most of them doub le-headers pulling 30 cars. The trains going over the east coast single-track line could not tak e 30 cars, ho wever, since the sidings were not long enough. The Koreans ran the trains; w e gave the directions. As soon as our ar my came to K orea we realized the impor tance of the railroads. Because of the long distances and the v ery poor roads, everyone moving in Korea wanted to go b y rail. Pusan Base Section ruled that rail mo vement was possible only for vehicles over two and one half tons that w ere going f arther than Taegu, Everything lighter, or going shorter distances, had to be driven. Transportation Corps 61

Not long after I ar rived in Korea I was assigned to estab lish a railhead at Masan—with onl y Sergeant Dennison as m y assistant. Dennison was a real help, for he kne w railroading and from a pre vious tour in Korea he could speak the language. F ortunately, the assistant station- master spoke English, and so did one of the switchmen. Masan is about thir ty-five miles west of Pusan, and its marshaling yard contained only eight tracks. We had a prob lem keeping the yard open to receive supplies for the 24th Inf antry Division while its withdrawals kept forcing equipment back into our yard. Communications were so limited that w e had little oppor tunity to plan our operations. We received advance notice whenever a train w as coming from Pusan, but those from Taegu just blew their whistles as the engines entered the yards. We had to post an of ficer at the Samnangjin junction to halt trains and call ahead to deter mine whether they should be allo wed to enter Masan. The 24th Division wished to lea ve much of its equipment on freight cars, par ticularly its heavy engineer equipment. I had to e xplain to the division’s officers that the utter lack of yard space pre vented holding cars for storage pur poses. The division assigned a liaison of ficer to work with me, and that helped. He told me w here the division wanted cars spotted, and I took over from there. In July 1950 the railroads became congested because too man y persons were giving directions in Pusan. Pusan Base Section w as put together hurriedly, and it did a remarkab le job. However, there were a few extra—and I believe unassigned—colonels in the headquar ters. They acted as expediters, and would come to dockside or to the marshaling yards and take over operations from the re gularly assigned lieutenants and captains. Each had a pet mission, it seemed. They were always saying, “The men need ammunition forw ard,” or some similar statement. Other supplies would be shunted aside and priority in unloading ships and in rail mo vement would be assigned. Taegu was being swamped with supplies being e vacuated, and with others sent forw ard by the eager colonels of Pusan. The situation eventually reached the point where the por t transportation officer complained to the base section commander. A control system w as established to deter mine daily how much tonnage could be mo ved to a gi ven destination. A canvass was then made of the technical ser vices. A train was made up to f it the requirements, and clearance was necessary before the train mo ved. It was not a per - fect system, but it took a lot of the “hur ry up and w ait” out of the situation. 62 Combat Support in Korea

5. Problems in Railroad Operation Capt. B. C. Mossman, 6th Historical Detachment. (Condensed from an article based on inter views with the following personnel of the 3d Transportation Military Railway Service: Lt. Col. Jesse M. McClellan, Commanding Officer; Lt. Col. Howard W. Martens, Assistant General Manager, Engineer; Lt. Col. F rank H. Drake, AGM, Communications; Lt. Col. Lawrence R. An- derson, Deputy AGM, Engineer; Lt. Col. Clarence E. P age, AGM, Supply; MSgt. Jack R. Spillers, Chief Clerk.)

Railroad activities in the K orean conflict have been vital to the movement of troops, equipment, and supplies. The military railway personnel have been f aced constantly with problems of reconstr uction, operation, maintenance, destr uction, and then, ag ain, reconstruction of the rail lines, bridges, stations, and communications f acilities. All these have had to be handled along with the forw ard and rearward movement of supply trains as the tactical situation changed. During the f irst several months, as the United Nations troops w ere withdrawing to the Naktong perimeter , there were few technical problems. This was a period in w hich traffic control and the train mo vements were the major considerations. When the September dri ve began, however, the railroads had to contend with destro yed water pumps, bridges, stations and tracks, and communications. The locomotives of the K orean National Railroads w ere all steam- operated and required lar ge amounts of w ater. Pumps were in poor condition originally, but in the recaptured ter ritory they were broken or had no power. The first pumps obtained from the Cor ps of Engineers had a capacity of onl y 166 gallons per minute. Later , 480-gallon pumps were installed and found satisf actory. To provide electricity for shops, roundhouses and pumping stations, 100-kilo watt generators were installed. Communications were also a prob lem. From Sindong to Seoul, communications lines were 75 per cent destro yed; from Seoul to Kaesong, 100 per cent; from Kaesong to Py ongyang, 25 per cent. U .S. signal troops and supplies w ere not available for repair of the lines. Until De- cember 1950 only Korean communications men could be used , and their work was unsatisfactory. There was no copper wire for railroad communications lines, and field wire was used in emer gency circuits. These circuits would function only for a da y or two. Then a second e xpedient was attempted— SCR-399 radios placed at each main station betw een Taegu and Seoul. This, too, was unsatisfactory. Transportation Corps 63

By late November the telephone line betw een Sindong and Seoul had been pieced to gether and was working after a f ashion. Early in De- cember a good line w as established from Kaesong to Py ongyang, but it was mid-December before the line betw een Seoul and Kaesong w as functioning properly. The circuits between Pyongyang and Sinanju ne ver operated. The greatest help to the rail way communications system w as the Mukden cable circuits, provided by Eighth Army in late No vember and early December. Circuits to Pusan, Taegu, Taejon, Chonan, and Py ongyang were assigned directly to the 3d TMRS switchboard. During the withdrawal of November–January there was no difficulty with communications. In addition to the Mukden cab le circuits, the 3d TMRS now had good w ayside communications from Py ongyang to Seoul. As the troops mo ved north after the break out from the Pusan per - imeter, the 3d TMRS and KNR personnel repaired tracks and bridges. Such repairs made hea vy demands on the engineers for timbers and tools. If the engineers had these, the 3d TMRS got them. U.S. engineers repaired the Naktong Ri ver bridge at Waegwan, the Han River shoo-fly bridge (expedient railroad str ucture) at Seoul, the Imjin River shoo-fly bridge, and the high-le vel bridge at Hanpo-ri. Ex- cept for these, K orean bridge and track g angs repaired the rail lines during the advance. They opened the lines rapidl y by using sandbags, timber trestling, and rail stringers as e xpedients. The Korean gangs could repair as much in three or four da ys as the U .S. engineers in ten. However, it was somewhat difficult to get the lightl y clad Korean gangs to work during cold weather. During the fall of 1950 the KNR had mone y to make repairs. How- ever, the scale of reconstr uction was so vast that in December the mone y ran out. It w as then necessar y for the United States to pa y all labor, new construction, and repair charges. By late November continuous operation as f ar North as the Tae- dong station w as made possib le by the completion of the bridge at Hanpo-ri over the Yesong River. On 1 December 1950 the railroad w as in operation as f ar north as Sinanju, b ut there was no railroad bridge crossing the Taedong River at Pyongyang. Both bridges across the Tae- dong had been b lown and it w as necessary to unload the cars at the Taedong station, load the supplies on tr ucks which crossed a ponton bridge, and then reload trains going nor th. At the time of the Chinese Communist offensive, the Korean railroads were carrying four thousand tons daily into Taedong. When the general withdra wal started, the technical ser vices hurriedly evacuated large quantities of critical materiel. Ho wever, certain supplies remained in the nor th and others w ere moved northward to 64 Combat Support in Korea meet requirements. Empty cars w ere sent into Taedong for south-bound loading. Successive railheads were set up at points w here the division could draw POL, rations, and ammunition. As one railhead w as closed, another was opened f arther south. This went on for se veral weeks, all the w ay south through Chonan. The locomotives and rolling stock nor th of the unbridged Taedong River were destroyed because they could not be e vacuated. South of Pyongyang, every effort was made to sa ve as much as possib le. Rail yards were stripped. Inoperative locomotives were destroyed. Bridges, switches, control towers, and other equipment were dynamited. A typical closing of the rail line w as the operation at Yongdungpo. On 4 Januar y, 23 trains (462 cars) mo ved south-bound between 0001 and 2030 hours. One of the last trains contained machiner y and equipment from the KNR shops and yards. The movement control personnel rode the last train, w hile the engineer and transpor tation representa- tives who demolished the yards withdre w by jeep, By 0200, 5 Jan- uary, Yongdungpo was cleared, and trains w ere moving south on both tracks of the main line. Similar operations took place at Ascom City and Inchon. Hea vy traffic moved out by rail over the main line, b ut much was moved by rail to Inchon and placed on ships. Rail yards at these tw o cities were blown on the night of 4 Januar y; the railroaders, including the KNR employees, were moved to Pusan b y water. Only the last tw o switch engines working at the docks were destroyed. During the withdrawal, thousands of K orean refugees streamed south. Railroad yards became so cro wded that the refugees had to be driven away before the trains could be made up. This was particularly true at Seoul and Yongdungpo. All south-bound trains car ried refugees —as long as one more could hang on. Screening points for the nor th-bound cars were set up along the main line. Items not needed , or intended for units that had mo ved, were cut out. But e ven with this system, the consignee unit w as often gone when a car ar rived at its destination. If possib le, a re-routing or re- consignment was made. The urgency of the tactical situation brought much disor ganized loading. Some cars w ere not marked, others were marked inadequately, and on some the marks w ere obliterated. The railroads moved all cars. Screening was carried out along the line, b ut it allowed many unmarked cars to be brought all the way to the Pusan area. Early in Januar y, 20 to 30 trains w ere coming into Pusan area dail y. The rail lines could not handle this v olume. About 50 per cent of the cars arriving were unmarked. Screening teams, w hich opened the cars, Transportation Corps 65 often found items for three or four dif ferent services loaded into one car . It took months to clear the Pusan yards of the retrograde tonnage. The men of the K orean National Railroads sho wed great loyalty and courage during the withdra wal. In several instances train and engine crews moved their trains from a city as the inf antry withdrew. At Sojong-ni the inf antry had taken up positions south of the to wn while the KNR crews were still making up the last train.

6. Railroading in Korea Capt. Max N. Brown, 714th Transportation Railway Operating Battalion

An American can teach a K orean to r un a railroad b y our standards, but it takes patience. There are many things we can do in f ifteen minutes that take Koreans two hours. This wouldn’t make much difference if combat didn’ t make all operations ur gent. But when you realize that the K orean railroads moved approximately 95 per cent of all tonnage to the front, y ou know the Koreans (and the Americans who assisted them) gave a pretty fair account of themselves. I commanded Company C, 714th (later 724th) Transportation Rail- way Operating Battalion. Compan y C is the operating compan y—it fur- nishes the men w ho run the trains. In K orea we had to tailor our oper - ations to the situation, and many changes were made. The Koreans provided full crews for their trains, and their hands were on the throttles. In late 1951 w e began to bring some diesel engines into Korea, and we placed our o wn men in the cabs of these—plus a Korean pilot engineer. Except for this late de velopment, it would appear that w e had no job. This was not tr ue. We provided about a hundred conductors. The Korean conductor on each train w as in command and , in a sense, our man was an advisor. But on one thing our conductor had absolute control: dropping cars. To prevent wholesale pilferage we insisted that no car could be cut out of a train at a w ay station unless our conductor approved. He had to check each claim of a hotbox or other failure. Beginning at Pusan, the 714th Battalion operated be yond Wonju on the eastern railroad and to Taejon on the doub le-track main line. Nor - mally, an operating battalion controls 90 to 125 miles of track, but w e covered 500 to 600 miles. In this situation Compan y C was assigned 400 of the 511 men in our battalion, e ven though the T/O&E gave us 66 Combat Support in Korea only 289. To get the conductors w e needed for our operation w e used our unassigned steam engineers and gave others on-the-job training. The shortage of freight cars placed a se vere strain on the railroad system. We had approximately 7,000 cars, b ut 500 of these w ere in very bad shape. Estimating a se ven-day turnaround between Pusan and the front, we figured 8,500 cars w ere the minimum to handle the load. We received a one-day advance notice of our requirements, and that k ept us jumping to have cars on hand. More than once the cars w ere not in our yards and we could not meet the demand. The shortage of cars and their constant use led to se veral problems. We could not take cars out of circulation to repair them as often as w e should have. Also, we could not allo w cars to remain on the sidings— something that had to be drilled into commanders in the forw ard areas. Looking back at our operations in K orea, I believe our biggest problem was keeping the tracks open. We had an unbelie vable number of derailments—I recall six in one da y—and we had only one car with a hook on it. The derailments were caused most frequentl y by the worn-out equipment, b ut sabotage did occur . We were fortunate in having a g roup of experienced Koreans clearing the tracks. I mar velled at the ingenuity of the K oreans as they put freight cars back onto the rails with little or no equipment. Ev erything considered, the Korean railroad personnel have done extremely well.

7. Transportation Corps Operations at K-27 Capt. James B. Reed, Headquarters, X Corps

I landed at Inchon with the 7th Inf antry Division. At the time I was doing a tw o-year tour with a combat ar m. In October 1950 I re- verted to the Transportation Corps, and was assigned to X Cor ps headquarters. When I was asked if I kne w anything about air-terminal operations, I replied, “No.” It made no difference. I was ordered to K-27 Airstrip at Yonpo, several miles south of Hungnam. The Army personnel at the f ield consisted of one second lieutenant (myself) and an enlisted man. Soon w e were assigned a jeep, a trailer, and a dri ver, and later w e were augmented by a tr uck platoon. After several weeks I was replaced for se veral days by a captain; then I returned to K-27 and again ran the operation. My mission at K-27 w as to document Army cargo and passengers. The combat-cargo officer was glad to ha ve us because the Air Force was not equipped to handle the job . We received a g reat deal of cooperation and good accommodations. Transportation Corps 67

It was my duty to see that Army passengers were received at the terminal and given transportation to headquar ters, or that the y were placed on a plane. We gave maximum assistance. Then we checked passenger manifests to see that the lists were correct. Medical evacuees were handled differently. Their flight was arranged between the surgeon of X Cor ps and the Air Force base surgeon. The wounded were moved from ambulances to planes, and the Air Force nurses and specialists took o ver from our medics. I recei ved an extract of the manifest, ho wever, so I could count the e vacuees as passengers through the port. The cargo operation was different. As soon as a plane ar rived, an Air Force cargo checker went over the manifest to see w hat was aboard. The allocation number on each crate sho wed the ser vice to which it belonged and its general contents. A platoon of marines stationed on the f ield unloaded the car go from the planes into our tr ucks, and the checker indicated the proper section of the in-transit storage area to which each item should go. We rarely knew in advance what was coming, b ut sometimes we were told to be on the look out for a par ticular item. A small shipment might have the address stenciled on the bo x. In such cases w e quickly notified the consignee, b ut most shipments did not list the name of the consignee. Every day we reported what was in the in-transit storage area and the consignment number to G 4 of X Cor ps. At corps it was a matter of matching the requests with the receipts. This was done rather haphazardly at f irst and we had some er rors. Once an American hospital requested a shipment, and a R OK hospital made a similar request at the same time. The ROKs inquired and w e surrendered a medical shipment to them. We found later that the y got the shipment due the American hospital. Many of the supplies w ere now consumed, and it w as necessary to reorder for the U .S. group. It was not always easy to unscramb le the shipments, but in time the operation worked more smoothly. The picture changed g reatly during the e vacuation of Hungnam. Instead of documenting car gos that ar rived, we just loaded and mo ved cargo and passengers as f ast as we could outload them. We forgot about safety limits and car ried maximum loads. Still, in the midst of the confusion and evacuation, the Air Force did a peculiar thing. While we were trying to get rid of supplies, planes coming from rear areas brought us drums of gasoline w e did not w ant. It took a lot of time to unload those 55-gallon drums, and then w e had to haul the gasoline to Hung- nam to get it e vacuated. We got the Air Force to stop once, but then the shipments began again. Don’t ask me w hat it was all about. I ne ver figured it out. Neither the Air Force nor the Army had sufficient personnel at K-27 to car ry out ter minal operations as completel y or efficiently as in 68 Combat Support in Korea

Pusan. There the Transportation Corps loaded and unloaded the planes and controlled the ground operation completely.

8. Breakage En Route Major Lawrence Dobson, Observer for The Quartermaster Gen- eral. (Excerpt from an oral report of 25 April 1951.)

All food going into K orea had to pass through the por t of Pu- san. I was utterly amazed when I visited the por t on the f irst of March, for I saw an operation that, had an yone told me e xisted, I would have said, “No, they can’t do it.” Cargo ships were block-loaded; in other w ords, similar components were segregated within the ship. But the y were not being unloaded that way. The stevedores were Koreans, and with no super vision in the holds, everything was thrown into the car go net. The loaded nets w ere not lowered, but were dropped. The cases of food w ere picked up, carried over, and thrown into piles, and segregated later. Every time a case w as broken, something was stolen. When they did not break a case open, the K oreans had small kni ves with which they were very adept. They cut the cases open—especiall y the post e xchange packs. It was estimated that w e were taking a 10 per cent complete loss on all subsistence items passing through the por t. My estimate w as that 90 per cent of the cases had some damage. This might be onl y a dented can, but we were still absorbing a loss before it came into the hands of the quartermaster. I discussed the situation with the commanding of ficer of the 55th Quartermaster Depot (Col. Louis E. Cotulla). He said he w as aware of the situation b ut had done e verything he could with the por t command. I later discussed it with the Eighth Army quartermaster (Col. James M. Lament), and wanted to talk to G 4. I was told, however, that there w as a change in command coming into Pusan and that the ne w CG had previously commanded the Ne w York Port of Embarkation. He kne w how to unload ships, and he appreciated the cost of supplies. I went back to Pusan on 30 March and w as as astonished as on the first trip. I will not sa y the condition had been completel y corrected, but it had improved so much that the loss was cut to normal. Now, how did the por t situation affect our rations? The 55th Depot would requisition two million balanced B rations. They would arrive by ship, and then the damage w ould take place. Of course, the damage was not propor tionate throughout. Instead of tw o million balanced ra- Transportation Corps 69 tions, it might be that onl y a million and a half balanced rations and a half million unbalanced rations were received. I said that at the time of m y second visit that handling w as very good. It was, with two exceptions. Some ready-to-use dough mixture, procured in 1947, w as packaged in cor rugated boxes, and these w ere falling to pieces. The second exception, hams and poultr y, are packed in wire-bound boxes. If the rope of the car go net hits the space betw een two hams, the bo x is immediately crushed and stacking is then dif ficult. But worse than that, the contents are stolen. I feel w e should discontinue the use of wire-bound bo xes, unless we are packing something solid. Not all of our losses occur in Pusan. Betw een Pusan and the for - ward elements the loss w as near 10 to 15 per cent until about the f irst of January. Then corrective action was taken. These corrections were mi- nor, but they reduced the loss. One trick is to use a hea vy wire to close the bo xcar door, cutting it off short so that pliers are required to open it. Better than an ything else, the quar termaster stopped marking the contents on the outside of the car. There is still a loss in the suppl y dumps because w e have to employ Korean labor, but the loss is g reatly reduced. I feel no w that the over-all loss from Japan to the forw ard element does not e xceed 10 per cent.

PART III Chemical Corps

1. The 2d Chemical Mortar Battalion Major Cleo M. Willoughby, 2d Chemical Mortar Battalion

The 2d Chemical Mor tar Battalion consisted of a headquar - ters, a headquar ters company, and three mor tar companies.1 At full strength each mortar company had 171 of ficers and men, tw elve M2 4.2- 1 3 inch mortars, three 2- /2-ton trucks, five /4-ton trucks, and thir ty-five jeeps. Communications equipment included both radio and wire. The battalion headquarters and each compan y maintained a f ire direction center. The 2d Chemical Mor tar Battalion was part of IX Cor ps Artillery during the ten months I ser ved in it. The battalion was attached to the 2d, 7th, and 24th Inf antry Divisions, the 1st Ca valry Division, the ROK 6th Division, and the British 27th Commonw ealth Brigade. When attached to the 7th Di vision we were further sub-attached to its infantr y regiments. In most other di visions we reinforced the f ires of the f ield artillery battalions. But no matter w here we were assigned, we always looked to the 24th Division for logistical support. We worked for a considerab le time with the British 27th Brig ade and found it a v ery pleasant relationship, although the lar ge number of units in the brigade made it dif ficult for us to pro vide enough obser vers and liaison officers. But this was a minor problem compared with the language obstacle we met in supporting South Korean troops. More important than language w as the difference between South Korean methods and our o wn. The ROK units nor mally sent small detachments about two thousand yards forw ard of the main line of resistance. This greatly restricted our ability to f ire. If we set up our mor tar tubes on the MLR so w e could reach be yond the outpost line, w e were caught when the detachment pulled back. If w e went into position a normal distance behind the MLR, we were out of range. The ROKs attached us to their di vision artillery. Partly from pride, 1 The chemical mortar battalions of the United States Army were transferred to the infantry in October 1952. 73 74 Combat Support in Korea and partly from lack of ef fective communications, they seldom assigned us a f ire mission. Our men dislik ed being so f ar forward, where they attracted considerable fire, if they didn’t have an oppor tunity to shoot. In time, however, understanding between the ROK units and our battalion improved. The 2d Chemical Mor tar Battalion was not once pulled out of the line between October 1950 and October 1951, The only time we were not firing was when we were moving from one unit to another . The infantry mortar companies nor mally rested whenever their regiment was relieved, or went into reser ve. The artillery was back f ar enough to set up tents and b uild shelters for their men. But this w as not tr ue for us. Our companies went into position from 500 to 1,500 yards behind the MLR. Here our men w ere always under tension, and had to be v ery careful to maintain local security. Although a chemical mor tar battalion is designed to deli ver massed fire, in Korea the rough ter rain, the broad fronts, and the re gimental combat team type of f ighting made this impossib le. Still, we had organi- zational advantages over the inf antry mortar companies. Our battalion commander was in a position to ask for a sector , guarantee fires, and then insist on being left alone. The commander of the infantry mortar company seldom had so much freedom. Our T/O&E gave us enough of ficers for observation and liaison assignments, w hile the infantry mortar companies had only privates first class for those jobs. Our of ficers were better trained, and their higher rank made it easier for them to advise battalion and company commanders. We had another advantage in that w e used ar tillery firing methods, while the infantr y continued to use the procedures of the smaller inf antry mortars. We used g rid-target computing, and the ar tillery FDC gave us a flexibility that the infantry did not have. One of our w orst problems in Korea was the shortage of spare par ts. Medium ordnance repair companies of IX Cor ps did not have base plates, elevating screws, and traverse nuts in stock, and the y had trouble getting them. Often it took f ive to six w eeks to get a replacement par t. Once I had to go to Japan to get parts so that we could continue firing. Heavy vehicles to haul ammunition and supplies w ere always short. We had enough jeeps, b ut our heavy rate of f ire forced us to haul ammunition tonnages beyond our capacity. Battalion did its best to stretch the limited transpor tation by adding tr ucks directly to the mor tar companies and by maintaining forward ammunition dumps, b ut these moves were inadequate when all three companies w ere firing for sustained periods. Thinking back about m y experience with the chemical mor tar battalions, both in World War II and in K orea, I cannot help but rate the Chemical Corps 75

M2 4.2-inch mortar a f ine weapon. It packs a ter rific wallop, can give accurate support, and has all-around v alue for close suppor t when given proper logistical support.

2. Letters from a Commander Lt.Col. Edgar V. H. Bell, 2d Chemical Mor tar Battalion. (Let- ters to Maj.Gen. E. F . Bullene, Chief Chemical Of ficer, U.S. Army.)

13 November 1950 I wrote to Colonel Efnor [Lt.Col. Sam Efnor , Jr.] the other day and told him of the acti vities of the battalion. I ask ed him to pass this information on to y ou. There is not much to add at present. We are now with U.S. troops on the of fensive again, and the battalion is doing very well. I have been promised some ne w mortars, and when we get them the entire battalion will be in action. We have had a great deal of breakage of mortar parts—elevating screws and traverse nuts are the principal ones. Replacement parts that we brought from Edge wood Arsenal are nearly exhausted and there are no other 4.2-inch mortar parts in Korea. I have not per mitted fire over four thousand yards. It has been e x- tremely difficult to keep the mor tars in range. There are no roads as w e know them, only narrow cart trails barely passable (one way) by jeep- and then only in dr y weather. These cart tracks are nearl y always raised well above the surface of adjacent rice paddies. Once a v ehicle is off the trail it is nearl y always bogged down for good. Tremendous frontages assigned to infantry units require us to do a g reat deal of rapid mo vement, so hand-carry is entirely out of the question. Ammunition has been a ter rific problem, but so f ar we have never had less than one hundred rounds per mor tar on position. This requires great effort and much tr uck movement as supply lines are v ery long in point of hours of travel. I am operating a v ery small forward command post. I ha ve with me the S3, the assistant S 3, the S 2, communications officer, and surgeon- together with 22 enlisted men. The rest of headquar ters company, under Major [Mer ritt W.] Briggs, is about tw enty miles to the rear w here they can work in comparative calm and comfor t. This has many advantages, as the administrati ve personnel can settle do wn in one spot and stay there for a w eek or more while we move nearly every day. The small 76 Combat Support in Korea detachment up here can mo ve quickly and does not fur ther clutter up congested trails. For security we tie in to some nearb y infantry battalion or regimental command post when we stop for the night. If any other chemical units come o ver here they should bring additional tentage. We have very little and there is no shelter a vailable. The few buildings are preempted by higher commands, leaving only open fields for people like us. It is bitter cold and , though the battalion has dra wn special winter clothing, the men still suf fer because there is no shelter . A couple of squad tents in each compan y rear would be worth their weight in gold. I keep the compan y rear echelons near to me. These consist of the mess trucks, supply trucks, and motor maintenance tr ucks—with the personnel from those sections. The battalion sees to all suppl y of rations, ammunition and POL. We feed two hot meals and one C-ration meal to the forward units. However, a few of us w ho are constantly on the mo ve rarely have anything but C rations. The kitchen crews must be ab le to bake good bread, for there are no bakeries over here. Personal cleanliness is dif ficult, as there are no laundries or sho wer points. The country is crawling with lice and fleas. I require frequent foot inspection, as I am most fearful of trench foot. We are fighting mostly against the Chinese no w, as the Nor th Korean units are broken badly and fight principally as guerrillas. The Chinese are well equipped with small ar ms, automatic weapons, and mor tars. The Chinese usually attack down draws and bottoms, and in co vering these approaches our mortars have done their best w ork. The Chinese take terrific losses, but the y keep on coming. Our mor tar men get into frequent small-arms fights. We certainly need the ne w M30 mortar badly and have hopes of receiving it one of these days. If I had only one in each company it would be useful in reaching the 120-mm mor tar used by the Chinese. Their mortar has a range of 6,500 yards and the y can sit back and plaster hell out of us while we are out of range. The best antimortar weapon is another mortar. There is much more that I could tell y ou, but I have so little time. The morale of the battalion is v ery high and the men are full of f ight, wishing to avenge our losses at Unsan. We do not reall y need anything here except 36 mor tars and three or four more mor tar battalions equipped with this new weapon. 16 December 1950 Following the withdrawal of all United Nations forces to the Chongchon River in November, the battalion w as attached to the 5th Infantry (24th Inf antry Division) and r ushed to Kunu-ri. The 24th Division was relieved by the 2d Division, and we shifted to that outfit. Chemical Corps 77

Since the withdrawal from Unsan, the battalion has been committed and shooting every day. We had Company C intact with all three platoons, and Company B with two platoons. Company A, having lost or destroyed all of its mor tars and nearly all of its other equipment, w as out of action. Early in November, as things were not too rosy, I sent our administrative section back to Sukchon. I reinforced Companies B and C with of ficers and men from Compan y A. Refitting Company A was a terrific task as we had to go all the w ay back to Pusan for the v ehicles and most of the equipment. Efforts made to ha ve corps or army re-equip us w ere un- successful. Only aggressive and hard-driving action on the par t of Capt. [Clair L.] George (battalion S 4) and his assistants got us our equipment. They went to Pusan, dre w the tr ucks, loaded supplies, and then dro ve them more than 450 miles over the world’s worst roads. We were able to replace onl y half of our losses in v ehicles and even less of the communications equipment. I completel y reorganized the battalion while in the lines and redistributed personnel and equipment to have Companies A and B each with three platoons. We had Company A back and shooting just two weeks to the day after they were knocked out. When the drive started about Thanksgiving, we were attached to the 9th Inf antry (2d Inf antry Division). We had pushed nor theast to a point a few miles nor th of the to wn of Kujang-dong when the Chinese hit us again. The 9th RCT was badly cut up as w as part of the 38th RCT. Company C was overrun and initially we got only four jeeps, an officer and 24 enlisted men out of the mess. Later most of our personnel either drifted back or were located in clearing stations. I sent the sur vivors back to our rear, which I had just mo ved to Kunu-ri. We kept Companies A and B in the fighting, and it was hot. The next day the Chinese hit again and the big withdra wal started. We pulled out with w hat was left of the 2d Battalion, 9th RCT , the last to leave. They had a total of 274 of ficers and men, and w e loaded them on our v ehicles. We retreated to Won-ni, where we put up a roadblock which lasted just tw o hours. It w as about 0330 w hen the inf antry battalion commander repor ted to me that he had onl y 30 men left of his 274, so we all pulled back to K unu-ri. We went into position there and the following night, at about 1900, recei ved an order to pull out—sa ving what we could but destro ying any equipment we could not get out. At the time we received our march order, we were firing at a range of se ven hundred yards. We lost only one jeep trailer w hich upset and was burned. After a rough night, I g athered up the pieces and re-for med the battalion. We were immediately attached to the British 27th Common- wealth Brigade, this making our f ifth attachment in tw enty-five days. That’s enough, in itself, to drive a battalion commander stark mad. We joined the British and ha ve been with them e ver since. I am 78 Combat Support in Korea happy with this attachment. These people kno w their business; the y know heavy mortars. We have been the co vering force for IX Cor ps since early in the withdrawal, and the battalion constitutes the light ar tillery for the brig ade. We have not yet been able to obtain an y replacement of our equipment losses at Kujang-dong by legal means, but as w e are the rear guard of a withdrawing army, we have picked up some gear . Our S 4 with a par ty of thirty-five men is no w in Pusan, and I hope to see them back here tomor - row with enough equipment to place Compan y C back into action with two platoons. We could not operate more than eight mor tars per company no matter how much equipment w e had, for our strength is do wn to 23 of ficers and 352 enlisted men. I ha ve cut headquar ters company down hard so as to have about 100 of ficers and enlisted men in each of the lettered companies. But e ven to operate onl y eight mor tars “the bread is sliced mighty thin,” and most men have two jobs to do. While I feel hor rible over the loss of so man y fine officers and men, it is a little comfor ting to kno w that w e lost them w hile fighting, not while withdrawing. Company C, for e xample, knew they were being swamped, but they fired defensive fires at six hundred yards and had onl y ten rounds left in the compan y when the last r ush hit. They were able to destroy eleven of their tw elve mortars. The Chinese got to the v ehicles first, as usual. 31 December 1950 We are still attached to the British 27th Brig ade and have 24 mortars in action with a total strength of 338 enlisted men and 23 of ficers. Of the 33 chemical of ficers who left Edgewood Arsenal with us, onl y 19 are still here. Of the 14 w ho have left, 5 are missing in action, 2 are wounded in action, 4 hospitalized for noncombat causes, and 3 ha ve been transferred. None of the hospital cases will be retur ned within ninety days. This leaves us pretty shor t-handed both for of ficers and enlisted men, but we are doing all right. You will be interested to kno w that we have never been withdrawn for reorganization nor have we received any enlisted replacements. We have received four of ficers since w e were committed. Unfor tunately, these officers knew nothing of mor tars and v ery damned little about combat troops. We lost one of ficer within three w eeks, and it w as a shame —like sending a lamb to slaughter. I feel v ery strongly that if the Chemical Cor ps is to continue to have chemical mor tar battalions, it should procure and train the cor rect type of combat of ficers for this duty . I would not give a tinker’s damn if such an of ficer did not kno w one end of a test tube from another , but I would insist that he ha ve a thorough kno wledge of inf antry organization, Chemical Corps 79 tactics and weapons. I would not care about a colle ge degree if the of ficer had the will to fight. I also feel that chemical mor tar battalions should not be sent to an y theater as chemical mor tar battalions unless the use of to xics is contemplated. The personnel may be sent as f iller replacements or the mor tar companies may be sent out as hea vy-mortar units, b ut there just is no slot for a chemical battalion e xcept where chemical munitions are to be used. This present attachment is b y far the best one that w e have had. The 27th Brigade has no hea vy mortars and we fill the gap betw een their own 3-inch mor tars and the direct-suppor t artillery, thus bringing the brigade’s fire power to nearly that of one of our re gimental combat teams. We have an impor tant slot to f ill, but when we are attached to an American division (and we have supported four of them), w e are used only to reinforce the f ires of their o wn heavy-mortar companies. I ha ve had to f ight hard to k eep our companies from being attached to the or ganic mortar companies. This is a w aste of f ire power, and w orse still, a waste of man po wer. A separate mor tar battalion has no role in the present army organization except in the case of gas warfare. We are in pretty good shape. Morale is high, and w hile the weather is bitter cold, our men are well equipped for it and can get along. 12 January 1951 We are still in suppor t of the British 27th Brigade. With them we were the last troops out of Seoul. I do hope that one more ef fort will be made to a ward our people the Combat Infantryman Badge. It seems to me to be rank discrimination to keep this badge from our men simpl y because of the one w ord, “chemical,” in our unit designation. The men in the hea vy-mortar companies of infantry regiments serve the same piece, f ire the same ammunition, and are subject to the same hazards as are the men of our battalion. F requently in Korea, the inf antry heavy-mortar companies have been attached to my battalion for operational control. Of course, w hen this was done, the more dangerous assignments were given by me to our own companies. It is common practice for us to operate jointl y with the forw ard observers of the inf antry heavy-mortar companies, their f ire direction centers, communications and ammunition resuppl y. Occasionally we perform the security missions for an infantr y mortar platoon, and once w e manned their mortars for them. It is interesting to note that w e are able to keep eight mortars per compan y in action with present-for -duty strengths averaging less than 80 enlisted men per compan y. The infantry companies usually run 120 to 155 enlisted men and onl y attempt to k eep five or six mortars in action. . . . We have very little left of headquar ters company, as I ha ve trans- 80 Combat Support in Korea ferred every possible man to the mor tar companies. The personnel section and most of the motor section are k ept well to the rear , while I operate the forward command post with 3 other of ficers and 18 enlisted men. It is amazing ho w much can be done b y so few people, b ut it is quite difficult and the strain is be ginning to tell. I rotate both of ficers and enlisted men as much as possib le. A couple of w eeks of eating and sleeping back in our rear echelon restores a man a great deal.

3. Smoke Generating Lt. Freddy B. Parish and Lt. Geor ge D. Sisson, Jr., 68th Chemical Smoke Generating Company. (Lieutenant Parish interviewed in Korea by Capt. William J. Fox, 7th Historical Detachment.)

The 68th Chemical Smok e Generating Company arrived in Pusan in October 1950. Its earl y assignments varied from unloading and guarding cargo on the piers to working at the airfields. During November 1950, the compan y was stationed at an airf ield near Ascom City. Part of our men w ere arming planes, and the rest w ere mixing napalm and loading f ire bombs. The company field-tested the E3R2 incendiary-oil mixing and transfer unit (for mixing and pouring napalm) and found it most satisf actory. The bombs w ere attached to the planes, and the napalm gel w as then blown into the bombs under pressure. It was an around-the-clock operation with f ighters being ser v- iced during the day and bombers at night. In March 1951, the compan y began its nor mal mission of generating smoke. It would be difficult to say that the compan y was successful during the next six months. The mountains of K orea produce v ariable and unpredictable wind cur rents. Besides, militar y units worked close together, and smoke which helped one often hurt another. The unpredictability of the wind w as illustrated man y times. On 4 March 1951 the 68th Smok e Company was called upon to generate smoke as a par t of a feint in Operation WELLSEND. A short test period proved that the wind w as from the wrong direction. On 13 March smok e was again used, but this time the winds changed so frequentl y that the smoke was not effective. From April to August 1951, par t of the compan y remained on aler t to screen Seoul in case of air attack. Man y alerts occurred when “Bed Check Charlie” roamed around at night. On a red aler t one night, smok e was generated. The following morning the Air Force claimed that the smoke limited the vision on a nearb y field to such an e xtent planes could Chemical Corps 81 not take off. Thereafter the smoke was generated near Seoul onl y on clearance from the joint operations center. On 1 June, the 68th smok ed a bridge constr uction site. Soon an ar - tillery colonel ar rived, complaining bitterly that his obser vers were unable to see. When smoke was used on a ri ver crossing, the Filipino troops were frightened by the smoke and w ore handkerchiefs as masks. Ev en a training mission for the 25th Di vision failed. Haze w as created to simu- late darkness, but the training w as unrealistic when the machine-gun tracers could not be seen. The only successful smoke mission occur red in July. The 27th RCT was making an attack near K umhwa, supported by part of the 89th Tank Battalion and some quad .50s of the 21st Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion. We were to give a smoke screen, but w ere prevented by the wind. In the attack t wo light (M 24) tanks and a halftrack were disabled by land mines. Efforts to recover these vehicles were thwarted by accurate enemy artillery fire. On the following morning our 2d Platoon be gan generating smoke at 0700. Conditions were ideal. There was a heavy moisture in the air and gentle breezes blowing toward the disabled vehicles. It took tw enty minutes for the wind to car ry the smoke eight hundred yards to the tanks, and a strong haze soon built up. Reco very units removed the tanks and halftrack within two hours, and no artillery fire struck the area. On a basis of number of missions perfor med and number of men employed, our smoke operations in K orea were not justif iable. But had enemy aircraft often attack ed our supply installations, then the smok e company would have been invaluable for passive defense. The mountains and winds, however, made close support of ground troops impossible.

4. Napalm Bombs in Korea Col. Donald D. Bode, Chemical Of ficer, Eighth Army. (Inter- view by Historical Office, Office of Chief Chemical Of ficer, U.S. Army, 1 March 1951.)

Our napalm-filled bombs are made in Japan. They are made of plastic, cost forty dollars each, and hold 100 gallons. New ones are now being made which hold 90 gallons. The Navy uses Corsairs and di ve-bombers to car ry their bombs; the Air Force uses F–51s, F–80s, F–86s and B–26s. They experimented at one time with carrying six tanks of napalm on an F–80, but the nor mal load is two tanks of gasoline and tw o tanks of napalm. On an a verage good day, 82 Combat Support in Korea the expenditures of napalm are: Air Force, 45,000 gallons; Navy, 10,000 to 12,000 gallons; Marines, 4,000 to 5,000 gallons. At one time there w as considerable difficulty in getting a good mix because there were no ther mometers to test the temperature of the gasoline. The personnel mixing the gel w ould get the cur rent temperature from the w eather report, but the gasoline would be from 10 to 15 degrees colder than the air temperature from sitting out in the cold overnight. That problem has been solv ed by using ther mometers and the E3R2 mixing unit. The E3R2 is very efficient, and when standardized will alleviate mixing problems. In a letter to me, one chemical of ficer stated that his men for merly worked a 24-hour da y on mixing napalm. Since they have received the E3R2 units, and have been checking temperature more closely, his man-power needs have been so reduced that his men spend much of their time helping Air Force personnel in jobs such as loading bombs. After the f irst few months of World War II, napalm w as mixed in England and shipped in 55-g allon drums to the Continent, w here it was handled by air chemical companies. In K orea two smoke-generating companies are used to mix the napalm. Often, fire-bomb tanks are onl y half-filled with napalm to lighten the load so that jets can tak e off from a shor t runway without difficulty. This requires the expenditure of more tanks, but is necessary at times. The tactics are much the same as those used during World War II. Napalm fire bombs have been dropped from high-altitude bombers, but with little success. Di ve-bombing at very low levels (25 feet) is satisf actory, but the effectiveness of the bomb is reduced to some e xtent by its skipping when it hits. Napalm is very effective against enemy personnel and as an antitank weapon. A hit anywhere within f ifty feet of a tank is ef fective. It is used widely and successfully against dug-in enemy personnel. When the bomb lands, the burning napalm spreads out and drops do wn into foxholes. It is especially effective against trenches and impro vised protections such as drainage and irrigation ditches where enemy soldiers are spread out along a wide front. The lack of enemy ground fire allows low-level bombing, even as low as 25 feet. Ho wever, a number of duds result from drops as lo w as that. There are three main reasons for duds: e xtremely low altitudes, failure to arm the bomb, and broken arming wires. The value of napalm is indicated b y the great number of requests for its use. Chemical Corps 83

5. Flame Throwers Major Charles H. Barclay, Chemical Officer, 1st Cavalry Division

The flame thrower is an e xtremely effective weapon, but it has its limitations. In K orea the steepness of the hills and the w eight of the weapon were particularly important. Then, too, we found that fe w men were trained to use it. During Operation C OMMANDO in October–November 1951, the 1st Cavalry Division planned to use the flame thro wer extensively to clean out enemy bunkers. To do this w e first had to qualify operators. F or this training, we generally selected replacements w ho had recently arrived from the U.S. training camps. Although Army Field Forces has a requirement that all recr uits be trained in the flame thro wer, we made a sur vey of 85 men and lear ned that only 2 had f ired the flame thro wer, 12 had seen demonstrations of its operation, and the others had ne ver even seen the weapon. These men came from se ven or eight dif ferent replacement training centers. Battalion commanders were urged to use the flame thro wer during COMMANDO. As the attack pro gressed, we had 97 flame-thro wer missions. The problem was to get the operator within ef fective range. Too often the Chinese would let the operator get near , and then drop hand g renades down on him. Of the 97 attempts, about 90 operators reached a point where they could use the weapon. Once the flame w as discharged, the operator w as a sure tar get. Of the 97 flame thro wers sent out, 65 w ere lost through enem y action or were abandoned so the operator could escape. Six operators w ere killed. The 1st Cavalry Division also employed the flame thro wer in defensive positions, mostly at night. In the 8th Ca valry Regiment a company using two flame throwers burned twenty enemy on their defensi ve wire. An examination of the bodies the ne xt morning showed that none of these men had been shot. Another night advantage is the three or four minutes of battlefield illumination afforded by the flame thrower. In setting up Defense Line W YOMING, the 1st Cavalry Division placed one thousand dr ums of napalm in front of the inf antry positions, b ut these were never used. The drums were filled, set in the g round at a 45- degree angle with the opening f acing the enemy. A block of tetryl and an 81-mm white phosphorus mortar shell were set underneath the drum, and the whole apparatus fuzed with detonators. This was a defensive weapon, but it would also provide ten minutes of illumination.

PART IV Signal Corps

1. Developing a Signal Organization Lt.Col. George Lieberberg, Signal Section, Headquar ters Eighth Army

The organization of communications in K orea developed on a logical, common-sense basis within the ur gency of the situation. The conflict was not anticipated, and so the troop list of F ar East Command was not prepared. Communications were vital. There wasn’t enough time to plan troop assignments in detail. It w as a matter of mo ving from Japan to K o- rea those units w hich were most needed. At first, signal troops w ould be necessary to handle communications from Japan to K orea and maintain the Mukden cable. After Eighth Army was in Korea, tactical communications would become essential. Eighth Army signal troops on duty in Japan consisted of a signal operation battalion, two signal constr uction companies, two radio relay companies, a signal depot or ganization, and various signal ser vice detachments. FEC signal troops consisted primaril y of a signal ser vice battalion. Because this was also a critical period for communications in Japan, withdrawal of signal troops from their tasks had to be handled carefully. The 8052d Post Signal. Detachment w as activated during the f irst week of July 1950, and sailed immediatel y for Pusan. Within a matter of days, half of the 304th Signal Operation Battalion, the 522d Signal Con- struction Company, and the 8035th Signal Ser vice Company (Very High Frequency) arrived in Korea. These units established Eighth Army’s communications system, and tied in with F ar East Command’s signal troops who were operating in the vicinity of the 24th Di vision. By the time the 25th Di vision was committed (approximately 12 July 1950), Eighth Army was supplying communications to its subordinate major commands. Just before Taejon fell, the FEC signal unit retur ned to Pusan. This unit was later organized into the 8226th GHQ Long Lines Service Group, and fur nished communications between FEC and Eighth Army. Personnel of the 8226th operated side b y side with Eighth Army troops. 88 Combat Support in Korea

In the f irst days the troop assignments to K orea were primarily the responsibility of Col. Thomas A. Pitcher. So accurately did he judge future signal needs that these detachments for med in miniature the structure later established. Col. Emil Lenzner joined Eighth Army as signal officer in September 1950. Under his guidance, the section became an efficient operating unit. As Eighth Army moved to Korea, its headquar ters split. The forward echelon advanced with the troops w hile the rear command post remained in Yokohama. This Yokohama headquarters acted variously as a communications zone agency and an o ver-all troops and lo gistical planning headquarters. Col. Paul Neal, the senior Signal Cor ps officer remaining in Yokohama, planned the requisition of signal units after comparing the troops in a type f ield army with those cur rently at hand. Adjust- ments were made for the unique elements of the K orean situation and a priority established, but the troops ar rived in the order of their a vailability. So much of the high-le vel planning was done in Yokohama during the first month that Eighth Army’s signal section w as able to limit its activities to planning and constr ucting combat communications, and car rying on such routine operations as the preparation of signal operating instructions. The signal troops requisitioned in earl y July began to arrive from the States in August and September. It was soon realized that a signal g roup headquarters was required to administer and suppor t these units. A provisional group was activated early in 1951. This provisional group was later reorganized under an authorization b y the Depar tment of the Army. All Eighth Army signal troops w ere attached to the signal headquarters. Other problems of signal or ganization arose from local conditions. One factor was the str uctural peculiarities of Eighth Army itself. Until August 1950, Eighth Army had no cor ps. This forced us (under signal doctrine of suppor ting to suppor ted) to provide communications to each division, and to each re giment in ar my reserve. This required more terminals and, therefore, more strength, than w ere anticipated in the es- tablishment of a signal section for a type field army.

2. Answers Not in Textbooks Capt. John W. Pierce, 24th Signal Company

Although U.S. Army doctrine teaches that wire is the primar y method of signal communication, I did not f ind this so in K orea. Here we Signal Corps 89 had to depend more often on v ery high frequency radio. Distance, speed, terrain, and road nets limited the use of wire. Road nets in K orea were so limited that sometimes three di visions would have to depend upon a single tw o-lane road for their main suppl y road. As a result, so many lines were laid along the road that the wires became jumbled. They were difficult to identify, follow, or repair. The poplar trees, which closely bordered most roads, made it dif ficult to get a hastily laid line of f the road. Ev en the use of an impro vised wire boom did not help much. When the communications lines were long we had real difficulties. Even spiral 4 cable (4 wires wound to form a single cable) has an opera- signal companies do not have repeater equipment for amplification. Most often when the 24th Signal Compan y (24th Inf antry Divi- sion) was called upon to provide dependable communications, we turned to VHF radio. VHF is not problem-free, but we were able to solve most of our problems. Location of terminals is the major difficulty. Since VHF operates on the line-of-sight principle we had to install our equipment on high, and often isolated, areas. The isolation of our stations was normal when the distance between our terminals was great or a large hill mass was in our way, but the sites were often extremely difficult to establish and maintain. Some par ts of a VHF station cannot be brok en down for hand-carry to less than 330 pounds, and an entire station weighs two tons. Resupply of food and fuel was a continuing problem. The isolation also brought a serious security problem. When a terminal station was located near a headquarters, that headquarters normally maintained the security. This was often done e ven when the ter minal was not inside the security perimeter. But with no headquarters nearby, we sometimes requested help from the Korean National Police. I did not have much faith in the personnel of this force, and in some cases it was better to use our signalmen as guards. The 24th Signal Compan y did not ha ve any of its ter minals attacked by guerrillas, but one terminal was hit by enemy troops in July 1950. We were new in the Taejon area, the situation was confused, and the station had not estab lished adequate security. The North Koreans hit so f ast that no one actuall y knows what happened. One man w as killed and two wounded, and the terminal had to be destroyed to keep it from falling into enemy hands. We learned that we had considerable leeway in the location of our stations. When we couldn’t get line-of-sight w e tried expedients before we went to the troub le of establishing relay stations. One solution w as to try a change of frequenc y. Lower frequencies would bend easier than the higher ones. We learned to locate our VHF stations in ri ver beds or valleys that had steep banks. So long as the path did not mak e an acute 90 Combat Support in Korea turn, and so long as both stations w ere located some distance from the first obstacle, we could expect that the signal w ould bank off one hill after another. The Signal Corps manuals don’t tell you how to make bank shots with VHF radios, but we used them frequently in Korea.

3. Flexibility of VHF Capt. Frank D. Secan, 304th Signal Operation Battalion

The VHF radio communications in Korea exceeded all expecta- tions. The 304th Signal Operation Battalion used sets AN/GRC-3 and -4, and operated them at ranges f ar beyond their 25-mile line-of-sight specifications. This was especially valuable to us during the rapid advance after the breakout of the Naktong perimeter—and until the Mukden cable could be rehabilitated. The longest leg of a VHF radio circuit that I ever made was 90 miles. We were transmitting messages 140 air miles from Seoul to Taegu. The first leg crossed two mountain ranges and came to a rela y station on a peak in a third range. The distance was so great that we couldn’t even see the mountain our terminal was located on. We just sighted from a rooftop in Seoul toward a white-capped mountain in the f irst range. How the wave got beyond that mountain I don’t know. Ninety miles was an extreme range, however. We got some dimming and blurring right at sun- rise and sunset, but we used the arrangement successfully for a month. The first maps we had of Korea were especially poor in the vertical scale. When a signal officer made a map reconnaissance for a VHF circuit, he could seldom rely on the result. I once planned a rela y station on a mountain between Pyongyang and Anju. When my installation par ty reached the map location of the rela y site they encountered a slight difficulty: there was no mountain. The nearest real elevation was fifteen miles away. In teaching about VHF radio, instructors often place more emphasis on the difficulties of line-of-sight than is necessar y. VHF waves bend, bounce, and do many other tricks. I have aimed such waves up valleys, through mountain passes, and once directed my beam directly at a large mountain—yet had the signal clearly received. This last case occur red during the Naktong perimeter f ighting, when my signal platoon was called on to provide communication between Eighth Army headquarters and the 19th Inf antry. This was an unusual arrangement, but at that time the 19th was one of the major reserves of Eighth Army. The distance was twelve air miles, but there was a mountain between us. Signal Corps 91

We would not have thought of trying VHF radio except that someone near the 19th Inf antry turned on his VHF set and heard Eighth Army. We knew that if one person could get the signal w e could too. I had a radio team at the CP of the 19th, but the y had difficulties. The regimental communications officer refused to allow the team to place their radio on an y high point because it might attract attention. The men were ordered to establish their station in a creek bed which had steep banks. The antenna reached no higher than the top of the bank. No reception was possible. I took the matter directl y to the ar my signal officer, and our radio men were directed to select their own site. Eighth Army’s terminal was established at 300 feet, the 19th Infan- try’s at 600. The mountain between us was 2,100 feet. We picked a low wave length. Our technical calculations told us that our circuit couldn’t work—but reception was perfect. As a result of worry about line-of-sight, I have seen a number of VHF stations located on the topo graphical crests of hills and mountains. Sometimes this is necessar y. Most often, though, y ou can accomplish line-of-sight without sitting on the summit. On the slope you can get out of the wind, with its consequent technical troubles and personal discom- forts. It is more accessible and makes installation, supply, and displacement much easier. It is less likely that the enemy will find you. Whenever you can avoid the crest, do so.

4. The Provost Marshal’s Transmitter Major Dale H. Shick, 2d Logistical Command

The provost marshal section in Pusan was extremely busy in Au- gust 1950. Aside from normal duties, it had to run five POW camps, control refugees, and protect communications at the critical period of the perimeter fighting. Inadequate communications hindered effective handling of these missions. In Pusan it is difficult to use frequency-modulated radio because of its line-of-sight characteristic. Military police vehicles mounted FM radios, and sometimes, though the y operated close to one another , they still could not communicate with one another or their headquar ters because of the intervening hills. The provost marshal turned to the signal officer of Pusan (later 2d) Logistical Command for a solution. The signal officer (Lt.Col. George Callahan) ordered me to install a central radio transmitter that w ould give the provost marshal section continuous contact with its v ehicles and installations. 92 Combat Support in Korea

A map reconnaissance of the Pusan area seemed at first to indicate that the transmitter must be set up on the harbor island of Mokto. This location would be ideal for line-of-sight, for the island formed an apex to the V-shaped Pusan valley, but Mokto’s sharply rising 1,300-foot hill has no road to its summit. All equipment, housing, food and fuel would have to be laboriously carried to the summit. Further, the distance to the transmitter site would rule out the use of remote control from the pro vost marshal headquarters. All messages would have to be relayed. Enough personnel to operate around the clock w ould be required, and gasoline and rations would have to be packed to the summit of Mokto indefinitely. I made a reconnaissance which took half a day. From the crest I could see the entire panorama of Pusan. But I was more impressed with the difficulties that Mokto would present than with its advantages. Next day I surveyed the low hills inside Pusan, and on the Kumgang Temple Hill I found a site that I believed might work. A road led up the slope, and on the easter n side I found a 90-foot pole. It seemed to me that communications could be established if we placed a whip antenna on the top of this pole, even though our antenna would not reach the crest of the hill. I borrowed two jeeps which mounted SCR-610 radio sets. If an SCR- 610 at our proposed transmitter site could communicate with another SCR-610 going about the Pusan area, then surel y the more po werful SCR-608 with a high antenna would do even better. Trials showed that contact could be maintained, and I knew I had the site I was looking for. I reported my decision to establish a transmitter on Kumgang Tem- ple Hill and pointed out the man y advantages of the site. Colonel Cal- lahan doubted that this would work, but he did not give me a direct order to stop—only a strong indication that I had better be right. It took a full day of preparation, and then a da y of work, to set up the transmitter. We took power from a nearb y electric line, and ran a remote control the two miles from the provost marshal’s office using a combination of spiral 4 cable and two metallic cable pairs. This gave us a radio circuit and a telephone circuit. A large crate from which we had recently unloaded an AN/GRC-26 was easily made into an operator’ s shack. Everything worked perfectly when we turned on the power switch. One night I happened to tune in and picked up a military police jeep patrol. This patrol had a roving assignment, and the operator was describing the women he saw as the patrol moved from one area to another. Looking back on that job, I realize I was lucky. I know there was a great deal of wave bending to get our signal all the w ay out to the air- port. I know it was stretching our luck to install that remote over a two- mile circuit, when specifications list a remote as being good only for half a mile. But all the equipment worked better than performance schedules Signal Corps 93 list. It surprised Colonel Callahan when the radio worked—and I got more and more relieved that night each time that operator described another woman.

5. Relay Station on Hill 1157 Lt. Jasper Lupo, 101st Signal Operation Battalion. (Interview by Capt. Pierce W. Briscoe, 2d Historical Team.)

The divisions of IX Corps were advancing rapidly, and it was obvious that they would soon be out of radio range. Therefore, on 23 May 1951, the Radio Relay Platoon of the 101st Signal Operation Battalion was ordered to erect four VHF relays on Hill 1157. 1 Next day, at 0500, the detachment mo ved out with tw o 2- /2-ton 1 trucks of radio equipment; a 2- /2-ton truck carrying twenty-five Ko- 3 rean laborers, their A-frames, and rations; and a /4-ton truck carrying Lt. Jasper Lupo and a six-man relay team. Leaving the MSR, the detachment drove over a narrow, rocky trail. This trail crossed a stream f ive times, but led to the w estern slopes of Hill 1157. F our miles from the MSR, the vehicles could go no farther. A base camp was established. It took an hour to di vide the equipment and to load e verything needed for the first two VHF relays on the Koreans’ A-frames. On each trip they carried 3 power units, 6 transmitters, 6 recei vers, and other supplies. The loads averaged over 300 pounds! Lieutenant Lupo and his K orean interpreter moved ahead of the bearers during the climb. Because the group might run into enemy strag- glers, a warning signal was agreed upon. Three miles up the trail, scattered small-arms fire came close to the lieutenant, but the march was not delayed. After an eight-hour climb, the bearers reached the mountain top at 1730. Lieutenant Lupo had already selected the radio rela y site. The Koreans immediately began their return march, laying field wire along the trail to the base camp as they descended. Eight 25-foot antennas were erected and oriented by compass. Lo- cations for eight more w ere selected. Equipment w as unpacked, assembled, checked, and by 1900 the first two relays were ready for operation. Meanwhile, the Koreans had reached the base camp and had loaded the remaining equipment. They returned to the crest of the mountain at 0200, 25 Ma y. The signalmen worked throughout the night and assembled the second two relays. The VHF station was completed and 94 Combat Support in Korea all four relays were operating by 0600. Eight tons of Signal Corps equipment and other supplies had been car ried to the top and assemb led on Hill 1157.

6. Everyone Wants a Telephone Lt. David S. Howard, 532d Signal Construction Company

From the moment the 532d Signal Constr uction Company arrived in Korea on 10 July 1950, we got calls for telephones. It seemed at first as though there were more staff officers in Eighth Army headquarters than troops in the f ield-and everyone of them wanted a phone. We put in phones as fast as requests came in and laid lines from them to the switchboards. But we didn’t have enough drops (spaces) on our boards to tie in all these local lines. It was so bad we just had to throw the un- connected lines on the floor . And whenever some officer did f ight through a priority for his phone, we had to pull someone else’s line off the board. This wasn’t because we didn’t try. Our officers and men worked with absolutely no regard for shifts. When you were finally exhausted, you slept for a couple of hours and then came back. Even the signal officer of Eighth Army (Lt. Col. Thomas A. Pitcher) went out with the wire crews and helped string the lines. Our wires, equipment, and methods were the same as those we had used in World War II. But we did make far more use of spiral 4 wire; even the divisions were using it. This soon put spiral 4 in very short supply, but it greatly reduced our signal maintenance. As the Naktong perimeter became smaller , the number of telephone lines in each unit rapidly increased. This usually happens in a stable defense. But in the perimeter this “defensi ve stability” only applied to certain units. Others shifted v ery often. The 24th Infantry Division, it seemed to me, was the one that moved the most, and we had a hard time keeping wire in to them. At one time the 24th w as west of Kochang and we were ordered to tie them into the Mukden cab le at Mir yang, about forty road miles away. So we sent out two crews and started laying two spiral 4 cables from each end toward the middle. But by the time these crews met and ran their test calls, the 24th had moved. The Mukden cable was of great use to us, but unfor tunately it was not located centrally. From Taegu to Yusong the cable runs west-northwest; then it turns north along the western edge of Korea. To get communications to the central and eastern sectors we used every open wire Signal Corps 95 line we could find. The wires above ground suffered more from combat and needed far more work than the Mukden cab le did, and even when repaired they were of poor quality. Rather than patch the old open wire circuits indef initely, Eighth Army started to build new lines in February 1951, when our troops began their second drive to the nor th. We connected with Mukden cab le at what was then the closest point (Chochiw on), then went northeast to Chungju, and on to Wonju. From there, the open wire line followed close behind the troops. Eventually this line was made a center-of-peninsula trunk, tapping the Mukden cab le at Taegu and moving north through Hamchang for a connection with the older open wire line at Chunju. Communication wires went up everywhere in Korea. Today it isn’t like it was in those early days when we had to throw the local lines on the floor of the switching central. Everybody has a telephone now.

7. The Mukden Cable Capt. Wayne A. Striley, 71st Signal Service Battalion

I flew from Tokyo to Korea with 3 other officers and 19 enlisted men of the 71st Signal Service Battalion. We landed on 4 July 1950. Our mission was to keep in operation the Mukden cab le—Korea’s key telephone-telegraph system. The cable and repeater stations w ere of Japanese construction, now run by the Ministry of Communications of the Republic of Korea. The cable contained ten quads, each consisting of two twisted-pairs of wires. It was buried one meter into, and one meter under, the Pusan–Seoul–Pyongyang–Mukden highway. In South Korea there were repeater stations at Mir yang, Taegu, Kumchon, Yusong, Chonan, and Osan. When we arrived at Pusan the cable was operating as far as the front lines. My job was to learn as much as I could about it and to service it in the forward area. I left Pusan on 5 July with a wire foreman and a cable splicer. At Yusong we halted and I decided to go no far ther. The military situation was too uncertain. As U.S. and ROK forces fell back we had less and less cable to maintain. We did not destro y the cable or its repeater stations during the withdrawal that summer. We figured we would return and need that cable. In September 1950 w e were prepared for the break out from the Naktong perimeter. Several communications groups worked on sections of the cable during the advance. My detachment kept right behind the 96 Combat Support in Korea infantry, and until we reached Yusong we were able to operate the cable within several days after an area w as captured. After Yusong the infantry outdistanced us—especially after they linked up with the forces moving south from Inchon and Seoul. The cable was now in pretty bad condition, especially in those areas where the fighting had been heavy. Since it was buried right under the main supply road, and only one meter deep, it w as cut at numerous places. Bomb explosions, artillery fire, and even mortar fire had cut it. Our operators could tell us within two miles where to look for a break, and we would search the road. Sometimes the North Koreans had tapped the cable and used a pair for local communications. When they withdrew in the fall of 1950, they did not repair the cable. Short circuits were frequent. Generally, some pairs of the cable were good most of the way, but often they were not strong enough to w ork a car rier wave. When the entire cable was cut we made a hasty splice and retur ned later to do a finished job. This procedure was different from that of World War II, but in Korea the destruction of signal equipment was greater. Cable splicing is a technical job, and we never had enough specialists. Many of the trained men had lost their skill during prolonged assignments as cooks or mess personnel. Eventually we had to import civilians from the United States—and pay them fancy wages. The repeater stations w ere in good shape w hen we reached them, except at Kumchon, where the station had been destro yed by artillery fire. But all stations were without electric power and were as effectively out of action as if they had been destroyed. However, this situation had been anticipated. In Japan the signal section built a number of mobile repeater stations in large trailers. These stations were a combination of CF-1, -2, and -3. In other w ords, they contained telephone terminals, telegraph terminals, and repeaters. The repeater vans were shipped to Pusan and followed the infantry closely, although the vans were difficult to maneuver on the Korean roads. The mobile repeater stations w ere built of American equipment, but they functioned well in the Japanese circuits. I understand we could get only four circuits from each quad instead of six, but that w as because of the different design of our equipment. When a van reached the approximate location of the repeater station, the constr uction men quickly tied both ends of the cable into it. The Mukden cable advanced and withdrew with our forces. It was a great artery of communication—and a godsend to the Signal Cor ps. I don’t know what we’d have done without it. Signal Corps 97

8. Signal Operations in Korea Col. Thomas A. Pitcher, Signal Section, Eighth Army

From the signalman’s point of view, three things stand out in Korea. First, the VHF radio companies provided the backbone of our communications system. This method of transmission was so flexible that it could keep up with the inf antry in the rapid mo ves that characterized the fighting in 1950-51. VHF provided communication over mountains, across rivers, and even from ship to shore. It car ried teletype. It g ave clear reception at all times—e ven when it was used at twice its rated range. After a headquarters was hooked up by wire, VHF remained as a secondary method of communication. Second, the Korean campaign was an outstanding example of cooperation. Personnel and equipment of all units w ere pooled. Although the long-lines group in Pusan came under Far East Command for operations, they lent us cable splicers and other personnel. When Eighth Army began building an open-wire line tr unk from Chochiwon to Wonju, the long-lines people provided almost as many construction men as we did. On the Mukden cable the long-lines group took over the repair of some sectors while Eighth Army worked on others. FEC made several of the cable repeater station vans. We never competed over personnel or services. Third, the destr uction of signal facilities in K orea was extreme. The open-wire circuits w ere so badly damaged that Eighth Army had to build its own lines. The Mukden cable was not damaged by the U.S. forces as they withdrew in the summer of 1950, but it w as seriously damaged by combat near Kumchon and between Osan and Suwon. The cable was so close to the surface of the Pusan–Seoul road that it was cut by bomb explosions and mortar and artillery fire. Only the Kumchon repeater station was destroyed, but many other repeater stations w ere rendered unserviceable when soldiers and civilians stripped them. To prevent this, the signalmen made every effort to get to the repeater stations before our own troops r uined them. We got to the Sariw on station before the infantry—and took seven prisoners. The destruction of signal equipment w as systematic during the withdrawal during the winter of 1950-51. We didn’t know whether we were leaving Korea, but we took no chance of leaving anything behind which could aid the enem y. We did a thorough job of destro ying the repeater stations, cable, and open-wire lines. There has never been a U .S. theater of operations that tax ed our 98 Combat Support in Korea signal resources more. We were assigned many difficult jobs, and we got them all done. .

9. Division Artillery Message Center SFC Richard L. Albrecht, Headquarters, 24th Division Artil- lery

The bane of our message center was the M209 code converter. It was slow to operate and mistak es could be made v ery easily. Every day it had to be set up carefull y, but a number of times a unit of the division was overrun and the signal operating instr uctions were com- promised. Then we had to get a new code setting, and start our work all over again. In their enthusiasm to get messages delivered, a number of message centers sent communications by several methods. All classified messages —even those labeled RESTRICTED—had to be encoded before they could be transmitted by radio. It al ways seemed we got our coded messages at night. It was normal most evenings for the code clerk to w ork several hours on messages, only to find that the same messages had already been received by courier and distributed. Our artillery battalion agents w ere very conscientious men. They always got their messages through. If one route w as cut by the enemy, they would try another. While we operated in South K orea the agent always carried a shotgun guard, but when we were in North Korea the commanding general ordered that only in an emergency would a vehicle travel alone at night. Usually we dispatched at least three vehicles along the same route at the same time. When an artillery battalion displaced and division artillery did not, the agents made the mo ve with their battalions. When both division artillery and the battalions mo ved simultaneously, the agents accompanied division artillery headquarters. Then the first trip an agent made to his battalion was especially hazardous because of the possibility of getting lost. Fortunately, we never lost an agent during the time I w orked with message center. Signal Corps 99

10. Code Lt. Arthur J. Cramer, 7th Signal Company

I ran an excellent message center, and I was especially proud of my cryptographers. They worked under great difficulty, but they were excellent at encoding, decoding, and security. When we saw the lax handling of highly classified messages after we had guarded their security, we sometimes got a little discouraged. I saw so many security violations and made so many reports I finally turned my eyes the other way. The entire cryptography system is cumbersome under the best conditions, but it is intolerab le when it is not w orking properly. Typical of the conditions that slow up the system were the overclassified messages. We received so many five-day-old FLASH (highest priority) messages from X Corps that they became a joke. Our cryptographers were overburdened with long messages that were also forwarded by some other (and often f aster) method. Many times at night I would awaken my whole crew to get them working on a number of long messages—only to find they had previously been received by telephone in the clear, or had been brought by courier. Another difficulty was the lack of e xperienced cryptographers in several of the headquar ters with which we communicated. The worst instance occurred in connection with the aerial resuppl y of one of our regiments. On 2 January 1951, the 7th Inf antry Division’s forward CP was located at Yongju, while its 17th Infantry occupied positions near Chechon. Between these towns the road winds through se veral long mountain passes. In one of these def iles the enemy established a roadblock. A decision was made to send an airdrop of food, ammunition, and medical supplies to the 17th Infantry. A FLASH message to Eighth Army (through X Corps) was delivered to my code room at about 2300. My men gave the message their fastest handling and delivered the encoded message to the radio operator in ten minutes. From our headquarters the message was sent to X Corps headquarters. As we normally did in such cases, we asked for an acknowledgment from the addressee when the message was understood. Because of the importance of the message I violated channels and radioed it to our division’s rear CP. From there it was to be delivered by courier to Eighth Army at Taegu. By 0230 we still had not recei ved an acknowledgment from either X Corps or Eighth Army, so we again requested an ackno wledgment. Back came word that the message was still being decoded. They couldn’t break the coded message. At 0500 we received an acknowledgment from Eighth Army, which had received the message through our secondar y 100 Combat Support in Korea channel at 0130. Earl y the next morning (3 Januar y) the airdrop w as carried out on order of Eighth Army. Four hours after the supplies were received I got an acknowledgment from X Corps headquarters that our message had been decoded. An investigation followed that incident.

11. The World’s Biggest Little Airline From Signal, November-December 1951. (Copyright by and re- produced by permission of Armed Forces Communications Association, publishers of Signal.)

Events in Korea have just completed a strange c ycle in militar y history. The Army Signal Corps, which hatched the Air Force by buying the first American military airplane from the Wright brothers before World War I, is now hatching a new but smaller air service. Today over the dusty, arid hills of Korea it is operating one of the w orld’s biggest little airlines. The midget airline perfor ms an impor tant job which is as old as warfare: getting the messages through. While most people think of battlefield messages flitting back and for th via telegraph, telephone, or radio, there is still a g reat bulk of documents, maps and photo graphs which must travel by messenger. In one recent month the airline hauled 34,000 pounds of messages betw een Eighth Army and its cor ps headquarters. Carrying messages by plane is nothing new, but in Korea it has become important. Jeep, or motor messenger service, had always received more use until the K orean campaign made getting messages from one battlefield to another more difficult. There are few roads there, and all of them are rough. It doesn’ t take many miles of bouncing o ver Korean roads to ruin a vehicle even as tough as the Army jeep and with so many other military vehicles on the nar row, dusty roads it tak es too much time to get from one point to another. The answer to the bad roads was the light airplane, the L-5, or “mosquito.” While it took a jeep tw o days to make a r un from ar my field headquarters and back, the light airplane does it in four hours or less. In fact, the first plane the Signal Corps recruited for this kind of work put fifteen to twenty jeeps out of work. Today with five planes, five pilots and a ground crew of seven, the September, when it got into operation, it has hauled a total of 82,000 pounds in payloads. Charts in the operations hut show its planes are mak- Signal Corps 101 ing eighty flights a month. Each pilot puts in about seventy-five hours of flying time a month, which means he has to make a flight every day of the week with few exceptions. There is nothing fancy about the way the airline operates. Each day before noon a jeep brings out the messages in mail sacks and tosses them inside the door of the operations hut alongside the dusty airstrip.A clerk inside tallies them in and marks them for different corps headquarters. Sometimes there is a passenger, but the maximum payload is limited to four hundred pounds. At 1300 the pilots walk back from the little mess hall and climb into their planes. The ground crew—one mechanic to a plane—has already given the planes a final check and squared away the baggage in the rear compartments. With a wave from the pilots the planes waddle out to the end of the strip and take off. If nothing unusual happens they will be back before sundown. They follow routes carefully plotted on the map in the operations hut. Each pilot picks his route from the weather information given him before taking off, tells the clerk which route he will use, and when he arrives at his destination he sends word back by telephone which route he will use on the return trip. These precautions are always taken so that if a pilot gets into trouble a search plane will know where to look for him. Except for these measures, the Mosquito pilot is left on his o wn to get from one temporary landing strip to another with his cargo. There is no radio beam to guide him, and though he car ries a radio its range is too short to be of much help and, even if it were longer in range, there is no one to listen for his distress signal. He travels like an Indian scout, checking his position with kno wn landmarks along the way. Rivers, mountains, roads, lakes and villages spread out below him in a great map. Usually he flies within view of main supply roads where he could get help if he had to mak e a forced landing. And, if he is forced to land , the broad, flat banks of the K orean rivers make good places to bring down a light plane in an emergency. The little airline has an excellent record for both safety and faithful service. So far no plane or pilot has been lost. Yet, in a country notorious for poor flying weather, the pilots have admitted only ten times in eight months of operations that it was too dangerous to fly. The light-plane messenger service fills a gap between jeep messengers and big-plane courier service. Most division and corps headquarters manage to clear a landing strip nearb y, but there isn’t always room enough for the big planes or the improvised fields may be too soggy after a rain. That’s where the light plane “brings in the bacon.” In World War II light planes did a similar kind of job, b ut it was not recognized until recently that what was needed was genuine operate- it-yourself, light-plane messenger service. Pilots and planes were recruited from the infantry and artillery, where the light plane has been in use as 102 Combat Support in Korea an observation and spotter plane. The world’s biggest little airline has been born and the Signal Corps has its early wings back again.

12. Division Aerial Photography Capt. Cass J. Joswiak, 2d Signal Company

The inclusion of a photo section in the division signal company is a post-World War II innovation. One officer and 15 men are assigned and their mission is to take both tactical and publicity photographs. The men have both still and movie cameras, and there are three K-20 cameras for aerial work. The section has enough laboratory equipment to develop and print all its own still shots. In Korea, under orders from General Headquar ters, Far East Com- mand, film processing was denied the division signal companies except in emergencies. It was understood that an emergency occurred when a VIP visited the division and publicity photographs were desired immediately. But our interpretation of this order ‘provided an opening wedge for aerial photograph at the division level. The main problem with aerial photography through the normal Army- Air Force channels was that eight days elapsed between the time the 2d Infantry Division requested a photo and the time the prints w ere delivered. Usually the situation changed so radically during this period that the division either had no interest in the ter rain photographed, or the enemy had changed his position. Soon after the 2d Di vision arrived in Korea I told the G 2 about the possibility of aerial photography by our photo section, but he was not very interested. Our first aerial shots were made in August 1950 on request of the division engineer. He wanted aerial photos of the Naktong River to use in planning river crossings. The pictures we produced were obliques, and they gave a clear view of the bridges, approaches, and far shore. In addition to ter rain, they showed a considerable number of enemy installations. From this time on we had many calls from G2 and others for aerial photos. Right after our f irst Naktong River shots we were asked for photos of Hill 409—all the w ay around. This hill was between the 2d Infantry Division and the 1st Cavalry Division, and we anticipated that our 2d Division would have to reduce it before w e could cross the Naktong. The photos were taken one afternoon and handed to the photo interpreter team the next morning. They located enemy dugouts, bunkers, and foxholes on the photos. Signal Corps 103

Still later in August, we were called upon to help f ind out if an y enemy build-up was taking place along the front of our division and that of the 25th Infantry Division. The PI team designated an area for us to search and for two days we made four daily photo runs over it. The results showed the arrival of a North Korean armored division just in front of us. In this w ay we were able to anticipate the thr ust and limit the penetration by the enemy. During the fighting along the perimeter, the 9th Infantry had a particularly difficult time with Hill 201. The regiment captured and lost that hill so many times there was a great deal of comment about the regiment and its abilities. The division commander (Maj. Gen. Laurence B. Keiser) ordered me to get complete aerial still and mo vie coverage of Hill 201—“for posterity.” Those pictures really showed what the regiment had been up against in the way of rough terrain and vicious close-in fighting. You could see the camouflaged enem y approaches, positions never discovered or captured, destroyed equipment, and the many dead littering the area. In September, as the di vision was preparing to break out of the Pusan perimeter, the photo section was ordered to photograph the winding road the troops were to travel. We flew ten miles beyond the Naktong River to Chogye, shooting pictures all the w ay. These photos showed where to expect trouble from the enemy and the terrain. As soon as the attack got under w ay we photographed the road to Hy opchon, and we continued to photograph the route of the 2d Di vision until we were pinched off by other divisions. The 2d Infantry Division did not get back into action ag ain until November 1950. Because of the nature of the Chinese fighting methods— hiding by day, fighting by night—we could not help much with our photography. In January and February 1951, as we began to attack again, we were able to get very good spot photos for use b y our commanders in their limited attacks. In addition, we made a daily photo sweep of the division’s front. We had several problems in our aerial photography. One was the demand for better photos than we could produce. We were frequently asked for mosaics with grid coordinates superimposed on the photo. This was far beyond our capability. We just took good ob liques and pinpoint shots. Their value was in speed of delivery. The second problem was getting the liaison pilots to fly close to what we wanted to photograph. At times we urged the pilots to bring the plane down within a thousand feet of the g round or lower, but it was no use. They flew no lower than three thousand feet o ver enemy territory, and then complained that they could hear bullets coming close. I never heard any, but I have seen holes in the wings after we got down. From this account it should not be assumed that all our photos were 104 Combat Support in Korea aerials. The photo section continued to take movies and stills of combat operations. We photographed our full share of VIPs, but we were especially proud of our aerial photographs.

13. Combat Cameraman Lt. Robert L. Strickland, 71st Signal Service Battalion. (Ex- tracts from a letter written while Lieutenant Strickland accompanied the 1st Marine Division into Seoul in September 1950.)

We got across the Han River and caught an ambulance going up to the front. Almost from the time w e left the river we were under sniper fire—not just occasional shots, b ut heavy fire. And most of the roads were under mortar fire, which made the going rough. When the ambulance tur ned off I got out and star ted walking. We went a few yards and got pinned down with a group of marines by mortar and small-arms fire. I got a few shots of jeeps running under fire. From here we went up, one at a time, toward the real front. I hooked up with one outfit that was moving up and shot some scenes of them moving past a knocked-out North Korean tank. Then I got some shots of our tanks with flame throwers moving up with marines in the backg round. The next shot was a lulu. I am afraid that silent f ilm can’t do it justice. The tanks star ted moving through an opening in the sandbag barrier. There was one marine l ying near the opening with his rifle pointed down the road. As the tanks moved through, all hell broke loose from the enemy antitank guns and rifles. The marine by the opening jumped almost straight up and ran like a bat out of Hades. The spot he had been lying in had just got plastered, but I don’t think he was hit. After that I shot some scenes over the sandbag barrier at the burning building in the background. It was exploding periodically. I didn’t get a good explosion shot but I caught one section of the building falling with a terrific roar amid clouds of smoke and dust. In one of these scenes I reall y missed a bet. There was an old Ko- rean woman sitting right in the middle of things, standing guard over an old man who had been wounded. It was impossible for me to get across the street for a close-up. The air was whipping with everything from flying stones to big antitank shells. When the sound boys get to this par t they can dub in all the battle noises they can get and they still won’t be realistic enough. I shot my next stuff at a road junction where some marines were running across the open to ward a small, triangular b uilding. There was a Signal Corps 105 tank and a lot of buildings burning in the background. I finished shooting and ran across after them, stopping at the comer of the building to shoot again. About four men passed me from behind as I stood there shooting up the street. All of them ran right into a mortar shell and got hit, one of them seriously. He got the one that was intended for me. I kept shooting while a couple of them pick ed up the seriousl y wounded man and helped him to hobb le to cover. A few minutes later an antitank shell came close enough to my left arm to ripple the sleeve on my jacket. I stepped back and look ed around. By no w there was a wounded marine and a wounded North Korean lying back of the burning building. Another marine with an automatic rifle was guarding them. I framed my picture so that they were in the bottom of the frame with the burning walls in the background. Then, right on cue, the wounded marine with his tw o buddies helping him along came hobb ling into the frame for a great shot. Right after this we got so much f ire of all kinds that I lost count. There were more mortar shells, more antitank stuff and more small-arms fire and then it star ted all over again. In a few minutes the little area back of the bur ning building which gave us cover was crowded with wounded men. They lay there in pain among bur ning debris and hot embers, hugging the ground to keep from getting hit again. There was only one medic—a Navy corpsman—so I put my camera aside and gave him a hand. I missed a lot of good pictures but there is no need to say the pictures were not that important. I have seen a lot of men get hit both in this w ar and in World War II, but I think I ha ve never seen so many get hit so fast in such a small area. I finally got free to start shooting again. By the time the corpsman and I got the first men fixed up the other corpsmen had run the gauntlet of fire to help us. Those corpsmen really have the guts to go in any time and place to help a wounded man. I started to get a low-angle shot of some marines coming across the road toward us. While I was getting down to shoot a mortar landed right in the middle of them. I missed the burst b ut I got the camera going again as the smoke cleared. The guys in the street were running like mad. They headed for our little area, r unning all over me, but giving me a nice “fade” by blocking the camera lens. I hung around long enough to get a shot of the litter bearers running for cover with one of the wounded men. For the next half hour or so, I couldn’t seem to get back to shooting again. I guess I was a little shaky. The fighting had moved on up the road from me, and once y ou get out of it y ou find it awfully hard to force yourself back again. After fooling around for a while I worked down the road and stopped off in a kind of alley with a bunch of marines. I heard a tank coming up the 106 Combat Support in Korea road and I got ready to shoot. Just as the tank got in the frame, one of the marines fired la carbine about six inches from my nose. The camera lens went straight up and I was madder than a wet hen until I saw a sniper fall out of a tree behind me. I took some f inal shots up at the sandbag bar ricade. There wasn’t much to shoot at, just marines moving up and some shots of tanks firing into a concentration of Nor th Koreans who were trying to encircle us. They were in front of us, on the right of us, and onl y about a hundred yards away on the left of us in a little village. About that time the tanks star ted firing their 90s right o ver our heads. The blast was so terrible that I still can’t hear well today. It was getting late and I had to get to the air port at 1700 to send back m y film. I got one more long shot looking back to ward where the marines were still fighting, and then left. 107

PART V Medical Corps

109

1. Battalion Forward Aid Station Lt. Rudolph A. Sarka, Medical Company, 7th Infantry

In December 1950 the 7th Infantry (3d Infantry Division) had one doctor in each aid station and two at each collecting station. Some divisions were critically short of doctors but we had enough because we had just arrived in Korea. To permit the doctors to w ork more freely, the Medical Ser vice Corps officers normally established battalion forward aid stations. Such an aid station was set up on a ridge west of Hamhung in December 1950. The 1st Battalion, 7th Inf antry, was withdrawing eastward from Sachang-ni toward Hamhung. When we reached the crest of the last mountain before Hamhung w e were much relieved. We knew that the enemy could not cut us of f from evacuation at the por t. But then w e were ordered to hold on this ridge. Our infantry lines were along the forward slope, the battalion command post was four or five miles back of us, and the trains were two miles beyond that. This deployment kept our vehicles off the mountain where they might be caught if we had to pull out in a hurry. The battalion aid station, the surgeon, and the box ambulances were with the battalion trains. The jeep ambulances were near the command post. I established the forward aid station along the road , only a few yards behind the infantry companies. The ridge was so sharp that I could be only a few yards behind the riflemen and still have both concealment and cover. At one time I requested two box ambulances, and they drove within thirty yards of the foxholes without being observed. An enlisted medic is qualif ied to apply a tour niquet, to bandage wounds, and to give sedatives. In addition, as a Medical Service Corps officer, I was authorized to administer plasma and b lood. I could tell when a patient needed immediate attention and could aler t the doctor to be ready to treat the man w hen he was evacuated. I was authorized to request helicopter evacuation from my forward aid station when this

109 110 Combat Support in Korea service was available. My job, then, was to fill the gap between the aid man with his small kit, and the professional physician in an aid station, working with more e xtensive equipment. On the front lines a doctor could have done little more than I. In any case, no one can complain that our forward aid station didn’t give immediate service to the infantry. I was so close that when I needed to make a phone call, I just picked up the rifle platoon leader’s sound- powered phone.

2. Evacuation at Soksa-ri Lt. Rudolph A. Sarka, Medical Company, 7th Infantry

On 19 May 1951 the 7th Inf antry Regiment left Seoul and moved east to the vicinity of Ami-dong. One battalion w ent into a blocking position that night and the other battalions closed in assembly areas. The next day an attached platoon of the division’s reconnaissance company made contact with the enem y near Soksa-ri. On the 21st all three battalions were committed in an attack. The terrain where the 3d Battalion fought w as rough. Litter evacuation of the w ounded was necessary, so the battalion sur geon (Capt. Gilbert S. Campbell) and his medical assistants followed close behind the assault companies. It was impossible to bring the aid-station equipment forward, and Captain Campbell w orked with the supplies from his aid kit. The battalion aid station, manned onl y by two medics, was three miles to the rear. Normally, litter jeeps from our medical company collecting station pick up their patients at the battalion aid station. In this operation, however, the litter jeeps passed the aid station and came up the road to a point only fifty yards from the base of the mountain on which the 3d Battalion was fighting. Between the road and the mountain w ere four channels of the Soksa River. The main channel gave the litter bearers a great deal of trouble because the stream w as fast-flowing, waist-deep, and had large boulders in the stream bed. A man wounded on the firing line was immediately treated by Cap- tain Campbell. Then he was carried down the mountain by a five-man litter team led by an American or ROK soldier and using four K orean bearers. The trip took an hour and a half. Once the patient reached the jeep e vacuation point his bandages were checked and adjusted, and his general condition observed. Seriously wounded were loaded two to a jeep; lightly wounded were often loaded Medical Corps 111 seven to a vehicle—one in the front seat, four in the back, tw o on the hood. The jeeps bypassed the battalion aid station and took the patients to the advanced clearing station. Here the seriously wounded were evacuated by helicopter and the others by box ambulance. Although this ar rangement departed from the nor mal evacuation procedure, it worked well.

3. Helicopter Evacuation Lt. Martin Blumenson, in Special Problems in the Korean Con- flict, published by Eighth Army headquarters. (Based on interviews of Col. Thomas N. Page, Surgeon, Eighth Army; Lt.Col. Arne D. Smith, Medical Section, EighthArmy; Major Sydney L. Fouts, Liaison Rescue Officer to Fifth Air Force; Capt. M. A. Mecca, Rescue Controller, Fifth Air Force; Capt. James E. Childers, 8193d Helicopter Unit.)

In the past, the tendency has been to move surgery as close to the patient as possible. In Korea this was undesirable because of the fluid tactical situation, the limited highw ay net, the rough roads, and the mountainous terrain. If they used helicopter e vacuation, the hospitals could stay longer in each location and allo w four or f ive days of postoperative care for a patient before further evacuation. Helicopter evacuation in Korea evolved out of circumstances. A detachment of the 3d Air Rescue Squadron, w hose mission was to re- trieve downed pilots, began to receive occasional requests from Army units to evacuate wounded from mountainous positions. Whenever its helicopters were not busy, the detachment responded. During the rapid advance of the g round troops in the f all of 1950, the helicopters w ere especially helpful in speeding evacuation over the lengthened routes. In January 1951 three Army helicopter detachments arrived in Ko- rea with the mission of e vacuating seriously wounded from the front lines. Each detachment consisted of 4 helicopters, 4 pilots, and 4 mechanics. Two detachments were equipped with Bell H-13 helicopters; one had Hiller H-23s. Each craft carried only a pilot and was equipped with two baskets or pods for litter patients. Under exceptionally good flight conditions, one walking patient could be carried at the same time. The Eighth Army surgeon placed the f irst two detachments to arrive under the control of the IX Corps surgeon. Since IX Corps was in the center of K orea, the helicopters w ere also able to serve the other corps. 112 Combat Support in Korea

The first problem that arose w as the necessity of teaching the helicopter pilots what their aircraft could do in front-line e vacuation. The pilots could learn only by trial and error. The ground forces then had to lear n the limitations of helicopter evacuation. In the popular conception, helicopters landed on mountain peaks, lifted straight up into the air, and operated in all types of weather. It was necessary to understand that helicopters could not fl y at night, operate in bad w eather, or land on sloping ter rain. They needed take- off space; they could not fl y in heavy winds; they had limitations of range and altitude. They also had less lifting power in the thin, warm air of summer. Ground troops had to understand the impor tance of reporting accurate coordinates to locate the patient. They had to be taught the necessity of marking the landing site with panels and of using colored smoke grenades to indicate proper location and wind direction. Combat elements sometimes requested helicopter e vacuation as a convenience. By the fall of 1951, ground units had learned to request a helicopter only for cases involving head, chest, and abdominal wounds, multiple fractures, and g reat loss of blood. Even then, evacuation was available only if an amb ulance could not reach the patient, if a rough ambulance ride would seriously injure him, or if it was necessary to get him to a medical installation quickl y. As a working premise, the local surgeon decided whether the patient needed helicopter e vacuation and the helicopter detachment commander decided w hether the helicopters could reach the patient. Ground forces generally did not realize the e xtreme vulnerability of helicopters. Their lack of speed and inability to fl y at high altitude increased the hazard of enemy ground fire. Furthermore, helicopters were extremely sensitive to damage. Lack of the gliding characteristics of a conventional plane and the increased prob lem of pilot control meant that almost any damage from enemy fire was fatal to the craft. Pilots did not wear parachutes because of the danger of falling into the blades if they jumped from a disab led craft. When an area w as under enemy observation the patient had to be prepared for quick loading. Because there was always a shortage of helicopters in Korea, Eighth Army ordered that these craft not be used on missions involving danger from enemy action. This did not pre vent pilots from e vacuating patients from units sur rounded by the enemy; nor did it pre vent the evacuation of casualties sustained b y patrols operating forw ard of friendly front lines. The first two Army helicopter detachments to ar rive in Korea were attached to the 8076th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital (MASH). At that time IX Cor ps headquarters was at Chungju; the hospital w as forty miles to the rear . This arrangement left long distances betw een Medical Corps 113 the helicopters and the combat lines. It was then decided to dispatch the helicopters from cor ps headquarters. Later, all the helicopters mo ved into the division areas. Normally, one helicopter was stationed at each division clearing station. From there it was but a few miles to the front lines. Certain expedients adapted the helicopters for e vacuation. Plastic bags were used to k eep the patients w arm. Flexible tubes were fitted from the engine to heat the patients in flight. Covers for the pods were devised to keep the wind of f their faces. The fact that the patients in the pods could not receive medical care while in flight remained one of the serious limitations of the helicopter, even though a mechanical device permitted them to be given plasma. The limitation on medical care and the short fuel-range of the craft make it necessary to keep heli-copter flights short. Helicopters in Korea had evacuated eight thousand casualties by 1 November 1951. Many of these men w ould not have survived without this transportation. The smooth ride and the rapid ar rival at a clearing station or hospital possibly caused a lower rate of shock fatalities than in World War II. The treatment of head injuries w as expedited because helicopters carried patients swiftly to neurosurgical teams. The presence of helicopters in Korea helped morale. Although much experimentation in the use of helicopters for e vacuation remains to be done, this “ambulance of the air” has proved its usefulness in the Korean conflict.

4. Optical Treatment in the Field Capt. Daniel B. Sullivan, 24th Medical Battalion. (Inter view by Lt. Martin Blumenson, 3d Historical Detachment.)

Before May 1951 there was no medical officer in the 24th In- fantry Division qualified to do refracting and no equipment for adequate eye examination. Men needing glasses were evacuated through medical channels, often as far as Taegu and Pusan. This wasted a great deal of time and sometimes caused individuals to be permanently lost to the division because they were returned to duty through replacement channels. Early in 1951 the Eighth Army surgeon recommended that refracting be done in the di vision medical battalions. The 24th Medical Bat- talion (24th Infantry Division) received a trial lens set, but there w as no other equipment. In April 1951, the commanding of ficer of the Clearing Compan y (Major Samuel Rother mel) determined to implement Eighth Army’s 114 Combat Support in Korea recommendation. He sent Capt. Daniel B . Sullivan to the 4th F ield Hospital at Taegu for a refresher course in refracting.All medical officers know the theory of refracting, and the refresher course pro vided a re- view of theory and a chance to develop skill in practice. Returning to the battalion with e ye charts, eye drops, and a retin- ascope obtained from the 4th Field Hospital, Captain Sullivan arranged for space for an optical shop, and then trained an enlisted assistant. Units were told of the new service and on 9 May optical examinations began. Each refraction took onl y a few minutes. If glasses w ere needed the prescription was recorded in the soldier’s immunization record (his Form 66-1) and in the records of the medical battalion. The soldier was sent to the 8076th MASH, where his prescription for glasses was filled immediately. The hospital maintained a stock of lenses and ground special ones when needed. The entire process took less than a day. Whenever the division went into reser ve, the 6th Army Mobile Optical Unit, operating from an optical v an, moved into the medical battalion’s area and f illed a prescription for glasses within a matter of minutes. It was not unusual for a soldier to have his eyes examined and be fitted with glasses within an hour. After the optical section be gan its work, the enlisted assistant gained enough training and experience to do the refracting himself. Ex- amination of the e yes for pathology remained the duty of a medical officer, however. From 9 May to 16 September, 897 men were examined and 768 had glasses prescribed and fitted. Only 34—those with pathology or needing other treatment—had to be e vacuated. These figures include not just men of the 24th Division, but soldiers of the 7th Division, Eighth Army and its corps units, as well as British Commonwealth units. The saving of man-hours within the 24th Di vision has been tremendous. The increase in speed has led to an increase in the number of soldiers seeking treatment and, therefore, to an improvement in health and morale.

5. Dental Treatment in the Field Major Peter M. Margetis, Dental Surgeon, 24th Infantry Divi- sion. (Interview by Lt. Martin Blumenson, 3d Historical De- tachment.)

The division dental surgeon has authority to distribute his dental officers as he wishes. Each division is authorized 18 dentists, but in January 1951 the 24th Di vision had only 15—enough for combat, but Medical Corps 115 not enough for garrison duty. When Major Peter M. Margetis arrived at the 24th Medical Battalion, all of the 24th Di vision’s dentists were on duty at a central clinic e xcept one at di vision rear and another at the advanced clearing station. Major Margetis saw no advantage in keeping the dentists centralized away from the troops. A man needing dental treatment might have to spend a whole day traveling from his unit to the dental clinic. Under this system of distribution, only one thousand dental operations (fillings, extractions, and prosthetic work) were performed each month. Major Margetis distributed the dental of ficers one to each re giment, division headquarters forward, division headquarters rear; two each to the replacement company and division artillery; and three each to the clearing company and the medical battalion (including the di vision dental surgeon). Each dental officer has an enlisted assistant and a No. 60 dental chest. The chest is onl y slightly larger than a foot lock er, but it contains a folding dental chair, electric motor, instruments, lights, trays, and medi- cations. Mobility is no problem and definitive dental treatment can be performed. Although it had been the practice to send all impaction cases to rear medical installations (usually the 8076th MASH), Major Margetis insisted that all such work be done by the division’s dental officers. Only four patients were evacuated as dental cases (gunshot wounds are considered medical cases) in six months. As a result of the new distribution of dental officers, dental operations increased from 1,000 to 8,000 a month. More dental work has been accomplished and less time has been lost by soldiers seeking dental work.

6. Changing the Mission Capt. John M. McGuire, 1st Mobile Army Surgical Hospital

Early in November 1950 the 1st MASH landed at Iwon, on the northeast coast of Korea, and moved inland to Pukchon. Here we worked for thirty days attached to the 7th Inf antry Division. This month was unlike any other period for us. Our hospital “followed the book” in both organization and operation at Pukchon. We were set up in a two-story school building which we shared with the 7th Medical Battalion. Although the 7th Di vision had infantr y regiments near the Yalu River and Changjin Reser voir, relatively few casualties were evacuated to Pukchon. The 7th Medical Battalion w as 116 Combat Support in Korea able to receive and care for the nonsurgical casualties. This allowed the 1st MASH to limit its admissions to patients requiring surgery. During November we received a total of 171 surgical cases and were successful in treating them without a single death. We gave each case maximum attention. At Pukchon, although w e were more than a hundred miles from many of the units we were serving, only two patients—both extremely serious cases-were air-evacuated to us. Shortage of airfields near the infantry regiments was the major reason for limiting air evacuation. After our withdrawal from Nor th Korea we moved near Kyungju. We were assigned to X Corps and our responsibilities were increased. In- stead of operating as a mobile army surgical hospital—that is, a small, sixty-bed hospital assigned to one division—we were called upon to care for the casualties from the 1st Marine Division, the 2d and 7th Infantry Divisions, and the 187th Regimental Combat Team. We rapidly expanded from a 60-bed to a 200-bed hospital, but our personnel increased from only 16 medical officers, 16 nurses, and 100 enlisted men, to 20 medical officers, 20 nurses, and 120 enlisted men. The expansion of the hospital meant that our primar y mission was enlarged. Instead of handling onl y surgical cases, we began to receive medical cases as well. Because the increased work load had not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in personnel, it occasionally became necessary for us to evacuate some patients without operating. In no case, however, did this jeopardize a patient’ s chance of sur vival or return to duty, for air and hospital-train e vacuation to the ne xt medical installation was always available.

7. Operation of the 8076th MASH Lt.Col. John L. Mothershead and Capt. Samuel L. Crook. (In- terviews by Lt. Mar tin Blumenson, 3d Historical Detach- ment.)

The primary function of a mobile army surgical hospital is to do emergency, life-saving surgery and to make the patient transportable to rear medical installations. The MASH was originally a 60-bed hospital with the mission of suppor ting one division. Because there w ere not enough evacuation hospitals in K orea, the surgical hospitals were expanded to 200-bed capacity. With the increased patient load, personnel, services, and tentage, there has been a decrease of mobility. To improve the mobility of the 8076th MASH, the of ficers de- Medical Corps 117 signed a new tent plan. Hospital tents are for med of detachable sections. Using 41 main sections and 16 end sections, the 8076th designed a unique hospital which was especially adaptable to displacement. The core of the hospital is shaped in a U. Around this basic center, tents are added and subtracted as the situation changes.

The hospital is moved in two phases. In Phase I, the tents housing the registrar and receiving-and-holding are taken down. The laboratory, the pharmacy, and the admitting functions of recei ving are moved into the preoperative ward. The tentage that has been str uck is then moved to a new location with half of the personnel of preoperati ve, postoperative, surgical, and central supply, plus one receiving clerk. At the new location a second basic U is formed, consisting of preoperati ve, postoperative and surgical. Central supply functions of sterilizing instruments and dressings are carried out in the surgical tent. At one point, therefore, there are tw o functioning hospitals. The hospital in the rear continues to admit patients until the forw ard installation is complete. When the advance unit begins to receive patients, the rear installation stops all admissions. When its patients have been evacuated, the rear unit moves up and joins the advance hospital as Phase 118 Combat Support in Korea

II of the move. The tentage of Phase II is added externally to the basic U in its new location. The medical officers and enlisted men who have not yet moved come with Phase II. All nurses move with the rear element. Moving from Chunchon to Hw achon, the 8076th relocated its installations in this manner: 19 September 0900 Capt. Samuel L. Crook left Chunchon to check several sites in the vicinity of Hwachon. 1000 Lt.Col. John L. Mothershead received final orders to move to the vicinity of Hwachon. Key personnel notified of impending move. 1200 Captain Crook notified that the move would be that day. 1300 Tentage at Chunchon began to be struck. 1330 Captain Crook notified Colonel Mothershead of new site and its location. 1530 Phase I convoy left Chunchon. 1730 Convoy arrived at Hwachon. 2230 Basic U set up at Hwachon. Ready to receive patients. 2400 Advance unit opened; rear unit closed. 20 September 0800 Patients at rear unit transfer red to 629th Clearing Compan y, which moved into Chunchon to assume the function of evacuating patients to the Chunchon railhead and airstrip. 1300 Phase II convoy left Chunchon. 1500 Rear unit arrived at Hwachon. Basic U expanded to form complete MASH.

Several modifications have been made to equipment to adapt it for local conditions. To increase the hauling capacity of the hospital v ehicles, trailer hitches were taken from abandoned tr ucks along the road. The hospital had Ordnance w eld these hitches to a butt plate on the 1 rear of each 1-ton trailer . Each 2- /2-ton truck now safely hauls two trailers, thereby doubling its hauling capacity. The tents have been made warmer by the use of Air Force gasoline- burning heaters which blow hot air to the tents through ducts. A sliding light system has been devised so that illumination can be moved to the best advantage in surgery. A sprinkler system has been de veloped to keep down dust. A food box has been developed to keep flies off food carried from the kitchen to the w ard. The hospital has had no diar rhea attributable to fly contamination. In the medical field, one of the expedients developed by the 8076th is the upright w hich has been w elded on the bar holding the Thomas splint to the litter. This modification permits giving intravenous fluids Medical Corps 119 while the patient is being moved. Because some type of holder for litters was needed to support them at a higher level than the cot, an iron-pipe tripod was improvised. This improved the hydrostatic pressure in cer - tain types of lung surgery cases where drainage was needed.

121

PART VI Ordnance Corps

123

1. Mobile ASP Lt.Col. Walter W. Gerken, Ordnance Officer, 1st Cavalry Divi- sion

The 1st Cavalry Division was serving in japan when it was alerted for movement to Korea. We planned an amphibious assault at Pohang-dong, but it was actually an unopposed administrative landing on 18 July 1950. Before it left japan, the di vision was warned it could not count on ordnance support for at least thir ty days after landing. Therefore, we were instructed to car ry a thir ty-day supply of ordnance spare par ts and replacement items. In addition, the di vision ammunition officer (Capt. Charles Russell) was told to carry a minimum of two extra basic loads of 155-mm. ammunition and five extra loads of 105-mm. ammunition. This requirement was not only in contradiction to U .S. Army ammunition doctrine, but w as well beyond our capability. The division ammunition officer’s job normally is to allocate—but not handle—the division’s ammunition. The infantry and artillery units clear their requisitions with the D AO on the w ay to the ar my dumps to pick up the rounds. But in this operation the di vision’s ordnance company was to carry ammunition. The problem of spare par ts and replacement items in volved considerable planning. We took only those things we figured we would need most. Even so, we had to stuff every inch of the machine-shop tr ucks, and use the M 24 tank transporters to carry spare parts. There was no space for the additional ammunition. Captain Russell just loaded it on the landing craft and w e figured to handle it as the situation in K orea allowed. In Korea the G 4 of our division and the G 4 of Eighth Army coordinated activities right on the Pohang-dong docks. It was understood we would need railroad locomotives and cars, and G 4 of Eighth Army

123 124 Combat Support in Korea simply asked our requirements. The engineer, quartermaster and other units made their requests, and we asked for 2 engines and about 25 cars. There was no railroad transportation officer at Pohang-dong, so Captain Russell performed this function. From Pohang-dong, elements of the di vision moved west and relieved the 24th Inf antry Division as it withdre w from Taejon. All our vehicles traveled by road, but we moved the twenty-five cars of ammunition by rail. We handled the ammunition by moving the train to a railroad siding a safe distance behind the front—perhaps tw enty-five miles. Then an engine and f ive cars of ammunition w ould run forward to establish a division ammunition supply point as close to the inf antry regiments as possible. The ammunition was never dumped on the g round, but was kept completely mobile. The closeness of the ASP to the guns w as such that at both Hwaggan and Kwan-ni the artillery was grouped around the area where the forward ammunition train halted. At Kwan-ni one batter y was within a hundred feet of the car. Rounds were carried directly from the flatcars to the guns. We were shelled at Kwan-ni. Artillery fire fell in the area of the ASP and, while it did not hur t anyone, it scared the train cre w. The Korean engineer uncoupled the locomotive and was about to take off for safer parts. Had he gotten star ted he probably wouldn’t have stopped short of Pusan. His departure would have forced us to abandon the cars and ammunition. But the engine didn’t leave because we kept the engineer in his cab at gunpoint until it was time to displace. We had some difficulty in getting the train cre w to move forward with the ammunition again. After this incident w e held the ammunition in three echelons rather than two. The main train w as kept well to the rear , a second echelon of four cars was two or three miles behind the ASP, and only one car was run forward. Even so, we had an irate Transportation Corps officer complain that w e were destroying the morale of the K orean trainmen. Labor was easy to obtain for this operation. We recruited as many civilians as we needed and kept them with us by issuing rice three times a day. We normally had a car of rice and other provisions with us at all times. Our operation grew rapidly. We got ammunition from a number of sources. In the hur ried evacuation of Seoul and Ascom City the South Koreans had apparently shipped out e verything they could, and the 24th Division got hold of much of the miscellaneous ammunition.When we relieved the 24th the y gave us their suppl y. This ammunition was further mixed by receipt of stocks from the 25th Di vision and other Ordnance Corps 125 units. Whenever we heard some unit couldn’t evacuate its ammunition, we picked it up. After we had been pushed back to Taegu we turned in 106 cars of ammunition to Eighth Army! We lost no ammunition or railroad equipment in the entire operation. This was one occasion when the DAO was more than a pencil-pusher.

2. Artillery and Hand Grenades Lt.Col. John E. Harbert, 314th Ordnance Ammunition Group

Commanders of tactical units have repeatedly emphasized the fact that the K orean conflict has been essentiall y a contest betw een enemy manpower and U.S. fire power. Communist forces in Korea have been employed against us on an 8-to-1 ratio. We have countered with a ratio of more than 100 to 1 in f ire power. The pitting of f ire power against manpower has led to unprecedented logistical problems. During a sixty-day period (19 August to 18 October 1951), 158,303 tons of ammunition were delivered to regiments and battalions of U.S. I, IX, and X Cor ps from 17 forw ard ammunition points operated b y the 314th Ordnance Ammunition Group. This represents 27 Liber ty-ship 1 loads, or 3,332 rail-car loads, or 39,527 2- /2-ton-truck loads (100 per cent overloaded). The 314th has had o ver 900 rail cars of ammunition moving forward from Pusan and Inchon at one time. Paradoxically, the enemy’s “human-wave” tactics and the mountainous terrain have made Korea a battleground of artillery and hand g renades. As a result, in this sixty-day period, we delivered across the front 3,092 rounds to each 105-mm howitzer; 2,579 rounds to each 155-mm howitzer; 1,830 rounds to each 155-mm gun; 1,631 rounds to each 8-inch howitzer—but only 391 rounds to each 60-mm mortar and 546 rounds to each M1 rifle. Over 400,000 hand grenades were used by Eighth Army. One infantry regiment used over 900 in one night. Such ammunition expenditures are not for the Ordnance field commander to question. His job is to suppl y the demand. However, I have often wondered whether we could maintain such a rate of f ire during a global war. Ammunition supply problems are never present during training. Therefore, when the f ighting starts, organization and methods of providing this combat essential are too often left to be developed by inexperienced and untrained men. This causes waste, hoarding, confusion, and sometimes panic at the critical periods of battle. When logistics meet the demands of tactics, there is little inquir y into the miracle of am- 126 Combat Support in Korea munition delivery. But the instant a shor tage hampers operations, w e can expect inquiries into the most minute details of ammunition movement along the pipeline. Fear of an ammunition shortage has often led to runs on ASPs—like runs on banks. Ammunition requirements cannot be measured b y bulk tonnages alone, for there are more than f ive hundred different types of ammunition and their components. Substitutions can often be made within classes I, II, III, and IV items.1 This is not so with ammunition.The key to successful ammunition supply is the delivery of correct type and amount of ammunition to the right place at the right time. Requirements fluc- tuate greatly with the type of combat. The 314th Ordnance Group de veloped a unique stock control and reporting system. Accurate, timely information vital to all commanders was forwarded daily. The ammunition picture for the entire peninsula was in the morning ammunition brief. This form analyzed graphically, in nontechnical ter ms, the ammunition b y type, location, and a vailability. It greatly helped us control the flow of ammunition, and it dis- pelled the fear of shortages displayed by commanders of tactical units.

3. The Van Fleet Rate of Fire Capt. David L. Mathews, 69th Ordnance Ammunition Com- pany. (Condensed from an interview by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Historical Detachment.)

During the defensive Battle of the Soyang River (10 May to 7 June 1951), X Corps exceeded all previous ammunition expenditures. The fighting was close and the divisions used “walls of steel” to halt the Communist drive. The artillery made the greatest demand on ammunition because of the weight and bulk of their rounds. In this eng agement the ar tillery often fired for long periods at five times the normal rate. On 22 May the artillery fired 49,986 rounds on the corps front. Artillerymen, firing at a rate of 250 rounds per gun per da y, came to speak of “the Van Fleet rate of fire.” A normal build-up of ammunition in the forw ard areas had tak en place before the attack. Units carried their basic loads, and the ammuni-

1 Supplies are divided into f ive classes: class I, articles consumed at appro ximately uniform rates, such as rations; class II, articles authorized by tables of basic allo w- ances, such as radio sets, tools, and ar ms; class III, engine fuels and lubricants; class IV, articles not authorized b y tables of basic allo wances but needed for operations contemplated or in pro gress, such as barbed wire and constr uction materials; class V, ammunition, pyrotechnics, antitank mines, and chemicals. Ordnance Corps 127 tion supply points at Hongchon and Wonju were well stocked. But in 28 days the corps expended 25,000 tons of ammunition, and fired more than 1,800 tons in one da y. The supply level became low at Hongchon and trucks often had to mak e the longer dri ve to the suppl y point at Wonju. Airlift was used to bring hand g renades and ammunition to Hoengsong, but this never exceeded 300 tons a day. During the entire battle, the 2d Magazine Platoon, 69th Ordnance Ammunition Company, remained in position at Hongchon—e ven though many other division and cor ps supply units had been withdrawn. At one point in the battle the enem y approached to within eight miles of the ammunition dump, so an infantr y company was sent to guard that installation. The ammunition platoon continued to suppl y ammunition without interruption. While a 500-ton capacity is its rated maximum, the platoon maintained a 1,163-tons-per-day level at the height of the battle. Dur - ing a six-hour period in the middle of the night of 20-21 Ma y, the platoon loaded 540 trucks with 4 tons of ammunition each.

4. Division Ordnance Work Lt.Col. Barton O. Baker, Ordnance Officer, 25th Infantry Di- vision

I get tired of hearing people say that the first soldiers going to Korea were not properly trained. The 25th Inf antry Division, under Maj.Gen. William B. Kean, received excellent training. I have seen our men in Japan going through mud and g rime, and actually using thoroughly realistic time-and-space factors. What we needed was more men. Our technical troops were as efficient as the inf antry. In the Ord- nance Corps we not only trained our own men but carefully pushed instruction in first- and second-echelon maintenance and repair as far forward as we could. In Korea our company did not need cor ps ordnance support until the division received a great many attachments. Counting the attachments, the 25th Di vision at times included thir ty thousand troops! At least 20 per cent of our repairs were accomplished in the area of the using unit. We took the parts and tools to the job and used the tank crews and gunners to help us. It g ave them training, let them see the functioning of their w eapons, and, if there had been ne gligence, they saw the results of it. Sharing in the repair reduced the amount of carelessness. 128 Combat Support in Korea

Nothing was so outstanding about m y company as the high desire of the men to produce. Two examples occurred about a month apart. After the fighting reached the 38th parallel, the bulk of our division was held near the line, but the tank battalion and the 155-mm howitzer battalion were attached to di visions moving toward the Yalu River. At Anju, about 1 November 1950, our units were relieved from their attachments so they could perform their maintenance and w ait for the 25th Division to move north. Both the tank battalion and the ar tillery battalions needed a g reat deal of servicing after the hard fighting. The shop officer from the ordnance company flew north to learn what they needed. He returned, got the parts, and took half of the ordnance compan y north to begin work at once. Ten days later, when the division arrived at Anju, these battalions were in excellent condition. Early in December the 25th Di vision was forced to withdra w by the Chinese offensive. Our SOP provided the following order of march: division trains; service companies; two infantry regiments; ordnance armored maintenance platoon; tank battalion; the third inf antry regiment; demolitions experts. The role of the ordnance ar mored maintenance platoon was to repair or evacuate any equipment that failed and, on call, to move back through the ar mor and last inf antry regiment to service or evacuate equipment. When we reached the small village of Chunghw a we had about twenty trucks we could evacuate no farther. These were placed near a crossroads and persons passing were invited to cannibalize them. A more serious problem, though, was the need to change eight tank engines. This had to be done before the platoon could proceed. The temperature was 10 degrees below zero that night. We pulled the eight tanks into an area near the crossroads of the to wn, erected tents, started bonfires, and went to work. We started at about 1800, and by 0600 all eight tanks had new engines and were on the road. It was a hard, cold night, but Ordnance did its job. Before noon of that day the enemy was in Chunghwa.

5. Close Ordnance Support Lt.Col. Joseph M. Heiser, Ordnance Officer, 7th Infantry Divi- sion

On my way north to become ordnance officer of the 7th In- fantry Division in Januar y 1951, I stopped to talk with the ordnance Ordnance Corps 129 officer of X Corps. He told me frankly that ordnance conditions in the 7th Division were not what they should be, and that I was going into a situation where my career was at stake. The commander of X Cor ps (Lt.Gen. Edward M. Almond) has asked two of the re gimental commanders of the division about their ordnance support and they had told him that the company might as well have stayed in Japan: the units of their regiments never saw it and the y did not feel it w as supporting them. Feeling had reached such a point that ordnance men along the road were refused food by units of their own division! When I reached the division I concluded that the ordnance resources had not been fully utilized. The 707th Ordnance Maintenance Company was located near Yongchon, 120 miles south of the di vision’s CP at Tanyang. A turnaround between the company and the di vision took twenty-four hours. There were several reasons for the distance betw een the company and the division. Part of the division had suffered heavy casualties in the action near Changjin Reser voir. After evacuation from the por t of Hungnam the division had assembled and hurriedly moved off to fight in a new sector. January 1951 was a month of uncer tainty in the division, and it hesitated to mo ve its heavy equipment forward as it advanced. The ordnance company was weighted down by a backlog of two hundred trucks waiting for third-echelon repairs. In addition, the company was carrying three hundred tons of ordnance par ts above its au- 1 thorized allowance. It would take sixty 2- /2-ton trucks to car ry the three hundred tons e ven with the nor mal 100 per cent o verload! The extra parts were being carried because the former ordnance officer feared he’d sometime want a part that the ordnance depot company wouldn’t be able to supply him. However, there was no selection in the parts. Many of them were nonmoving items, and a check of the stock-record card showed eighteen thousand items. By April this had been reduced to about six thousand, and I am con vinced that it could ha ve been cut further. The backlog of vehicles and the e xcess parts kept the ordnance company from joining the di vision. Companies and regiments were so far from ordnance that the y had little choice but to r un their vehicles until they quit. Then the vehicles had to be towed back. Our division had at its disposal the suppor t of the 7th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Company, yet it failed to use it properl y. This support company was only five miles away, but vehicles were sent there only when the division’s company did not have, or could not get, par ts to make a repair. It was ironic that the suppor t company did not overload itself with par ts, yet it more frequentl y could get w hat it needed 130 Combat Support in Korea because the supply sergeant worked more closely with the depot company. Shortly after I came into the 7th Di vision, Maj.Gen. Claude B . Ferenbaugh assumed command. He was vitally concerned with the problems of the technical services and gave us much of his attention. I knew he expected aggressive action, and I meant to deliver it. I turned over our surplus parts and backlog of vehicles to the supporting ordnance company. Then I moved the division’s ordnance company to Yongju—only twenty miles behind the di vision. Within ten days the suppor ting ordnance company had cleared the backlo g, absorbed or returned the extra parts, and had mo ved near us. F rom this time on the tw o ordnance companies w orked closely with each other and, on an informal understanding, under my direction. The supporting company leapfrogged to provide support. Sometimes it sent out detachments to assist our using units, and it was always available to take over our backlog when we had to move quickly. In those days we were very careful to maintain our mobility. Before I took o ver, the division’s ordnance company had sent detachments to the using units only a few times. Immediately after I took command I sent one third of the ordnance men out in detachments to the regimental combat teams. The men lived and worked right in the service companies. They taught first- and second-echelon maintenance and repair, and gave on-the-job training. In an emergency they even did first- and second-echelon maintenance themselv es to get a unit on its feet. At the same time, the service company trainees did a good deal of the third-echelon work under our supervision. It was a turn-about propo- sition, and we were less worried about echelons than giving training and repairing vehicles. For the next six months the close contact betw een the ordnance men and the using units was marked. By June, two thirds of the ordnance company was with the service companies. During this month our re giments were called upon to make a series of probing attacks. Commanders felt, as they had during the Januar y action, that they needed ordnance support, but they were reluctant to burden the forw ard areas with heavy equipment. Here the w ell-developed cooperation between the ordnance men and the ser vice companies paid of f. The 7th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Company and one third of the division’s company stayed well to the rear at Chunchon, w hile the ordnance ser vice was still being maintained as f ar north as Hwachon by our attachments to the service companies. Anyway, preventive maintenance and careful repair had so cut do wn the third-echelon repair that w e never had more than 35 vehicles in our shops at one time. Actually, the company was begging for work! Ordnance Corps 131

Another vital service that the ordnance compan y provided was to supply qualified mechanics and drivers to the division. Our on-the-job training was building up a creditab le maintenance force, but rotation meant that our trained men would be leaving. The replacement pipeline did not bring us adequately trained drivers or mechanics, so we set up a division mechanical school. The division’s G1 screened all of the replacements for mechanics and men whose civilian experience indicated mechanical ability. Every man he found was brought to our ordnance school. We set up our own staff, consisting of a captain, a warrant officer, and eight ordnance technicians, and we normally had from eighty to a hundred in training. We had close coordination with the using units and e very feature of the school w as tailored to their needs. If the artillery needed a gun mechanic, we trained one. If a gun mechanic came to us needing refresher training, we gave it to him. The captain and tw o NCOs did the planning, the others checked the progress. As the training w as primarily on-the-job in nature, we really had as many instructors as there were mechanics in the company. As soon as the automoti ve mechanics and others w ere trained, we formed them into detachments and mo ved them out to the using units. We maintained control over each man, checking to see that he kept our standards. We transferred the trainee to a re giment when he seemed ready. A gauge of the success of our school was that we never had a single complaint about a man we trained. The key to the close support we furnished the 7th Division was the close liaison. I spent 90 per cent of my time visiting the using units, and my staff was constantly doing the same. Command liaison was most important, though, for the commanders w anted to talk with the man w ho actually made the decisions. Our coordination was not limited to the division. The strengthened ties with our suppor t maintenance company made for g reater mobility and flexibility. In March 1951 the 7th Di vision made a hur ried move from Hajinbu-ri to Hangye—a distance of a hundred miles. Two RCTs were to swing south while the third w as to take a calculated risk and travel a road through countr y whose status we did not know. The lone RCT was accompanied by a strong detachment from our ordnance to assist it in case of breakdowns. The supporting ordnance company split into three detachments and estab lished maintenance points (g arages) along the southern route. The bulk of the division’s ordnance company made an administrative move. It was, therefore, able to begin operations in the new position immediately. In April 1951 another impor tant move was ordered, but the f inal destination of the division was not known. We transferred all of our re- 132 Combat Support in Korea pair backlog to the supporting ordnance company and it moved straight south. In this way it was able to support the division regardless of the direction the division shift might take. Close support is, and must be, the aim of every division’s ordnance company.

6. Attempted Tank Evacuation Lt.Col. Herbert W. Wurtzler, Ordnance Officer, I Corps; Capt. Gentle S. Banks, Lt. Leroy Ingram, MSgt. William T. Wilson, Sgt. Richard L. White, and Cpl. Earl M. Friday, 57th Ordnance Recovery Company. (Narrative by Capt. Edward C. William- son, 4th Historical Detachment.)

In the latter part of November 1950, a withdrawal was taking place along the w hole front of the United Nations forces. The bitter fighting and the casualties are w ell known. Something of the cost in equipment and materiel should also be mentioned. The 44th Ordnance Depot Company had occupied the buildings of the military academy of North Korea in Pyongyang for some weeks before the withdrawal. The fifteen- to twenty-acre drill field was used as a collecting point for disabled ordnance equipment. Here were massed for repair 30 to 40 tanks, 500 vehicles, an 8-inch howitzer, and three or four 105-mm howitzers. All were reparable, but none operational. Stored here also were 2,000 boxes of truck engines, transmissions, differentials, and transfer cases.

The 44th Ordnance Depot Compan y began its evacuation without enough transportation to move even its organic equipment. The collecting point was closed, nothing more was accepted, and every unit had to get its disabled equipment to safety as best it could. There was now little hope of evacuating anything disabled in Pyongyang. On 2 December the gates of the collecting point w ere thrown open and cannibalization invited. Demolition crews later destroyed what was left. The withdrawal brought the 57th Ordnance Reco very Company (Capt. Willard Baker) of I Corps to Pyongyang and it, too, settled at the military academy. The normal mission of the compan y was to handle battlefield recovery of tanks and to augment the recovery facilities and corps and divisional ordnance units. In spite of the improbability of e vacuating the equipment already in Pyongyang, the 57th Ordnance Recovery Company still tried to help Ordnance Corps 133 units that were having trouble. At 1600, 29 No vember, the motor officer of the 6th Hea vy Tank Battalion (Captain La wrence) rushed into Captain Baker’s CP and e xcitedly told him that nine of the 6th’ s tanks were limping down the Sukchon and Sunchon roads. Captain Baker turned to his operations officer (Lt. Gentle S. Banks) and asked, “Do you think we can help them?” Banks replied, “I think so, sir.” While Baker and the mess sergeant got Lawrence some food, Banks called Lt. Rober t L. Brown and Lt. Lero y Ingram to the motor pool. After the three of ficers had checked the recovery equipment, Banks assigned Ingram to the Sunchon MSR and Brown to the Sukchon road. Brown and Ing ram moved north with f ive tractors from the M 26A1 tank transporters. Their greatest problem was the south-bound traffic. The tractors crowded the road as they moved along. At 1900 a colonel of the 5th RCT stopped Lieutenant Ing ram. Although the road at this point was 17 feet wide, the colonel informed Ingram: “This is a tactical withdrawal. Pullover and give the traffic going south the right of way.” Ingram halted his tractors for about tw enty minutes, but at a con ven- ient break in the traffic he moved on. On the way he continually received slurring remarks from individual drivers, but was not stopped again. At 2300, nine miles north of Pyongyang, he discovered some of the ailing tanks. The drivers—cold, tired, and dispirited—had pulled off the road and had started a fire. On the Sukchon MSR, Lieutenant Brown made one halt because of a traffic jam. At 2130, thir teen miles nor th of Pyongyang, he met the crippled tanks. As long as possib le the lieutenants let the tanks limp along, then towed them when they could go no f arther. At Pyongyang the tanks crossed the Taedong River and moved to the Taedong marshaling yards. Their crews remained there with them. Both tank g roups reached the railroad yards by 2400. It was imperative that the tanks not f all into enemy hands. To get the tanks loaded and dispatched , the 57th called the 8046th Ordnance Field Group and requested that coordination and details be ar ranged. The next morning (30 November) Ingram and Banks w ent to the railroad transportation officer to check the a vailability of flatcars for the evacuation of the tanks of the 6th Heavy Tank Battalion. Banks learned that no ar rangements had been made, that loading f acilities and cars were not available at the Taedong station, and that the transpor tation personnel didn’t care much w hat happened to the tanks. As a result, Banks decided to move the tanks to Sadon station—a small marshaling yard five miles east. On the way the lead tank damaged a small bridge, and the convoy had to halt until the engineers made some hasty repairs. The march was completed by 1130, and the ordnance tractors re- 134 Combat Support in Korea turned to the military academy and brought their organic trailers across the Taedong River. It was now essential to get the 57th’ s own evacuation under way because the class 50 bridge was soon to be removed. At Sadon station the R TO informed Lieutenant Banks that Eighth Army had given the Air Force priority in loading. The Air Force had an assortment of equipment at the yards: some vehicles, but a lot of items like mess tables, Korean chairs, and office equipment. Banks pointed out that most of the Air Force equipment was boxed and could be loaded without tying up the only ramp. The transportation officer replied, “In spite of the f act that you need the ramp to load the tanks, y ou don’t have any cars anyway.” Banks answered that if he could get some cars he would be able to start loading at once, but once the Air Force began they probably would not give up the use of the ramp. The RTO agreed to confer with the Air Force lieutenant colonel in charge of loading to see if he was willing to leave the ramp open for loading tanks. Banks heard the lieutenant colonel state flatl y that he had a priority and that he wanted both the ramp and all the cars. From the tone of the conversa- tion Banks f igured that it w ould not be w orth while to speak to the lieutenant colonel personally. The Air Force used the ramp. Nothing more in the way of loading could be done at this time, but at 2000, 1 December , a switch engine ar rived with six cars of tanks consigned to the 6th and the 70th Tank Battalions. The ramp was available since the Air Force had pulled out—abandoning much of its equipment in the rail yard. The ordnance company helped unload the replacement tanks because it planned to reuse the flatcars to evacuate disabled tanks. But two of the replacement tanks could not be star ted. They too had to be reloaded for evacuation. These, with five other tanks that had been brought to the Sadon yards from the collecting point, made a total of fifteen M46 tanks and an M26 tank to be loaded. After the replacement tanks had been unloaded, the ordnance company began loading. The night was dark and cold, and only two tanks were loaded during the entire night. The next morning (2 December) the loading went faster, especially since some of the tanks helped others. A tank that could be star ted would pull another up the ramp and onto a flatcar. The operating tank then mo ved forward to a second car and two tanks were loaded in one operation. Even so, it was slow work find- ing cars and moving them to the ramp. In this operation flatcars w ere used that normally would have been considered too light.All paper work was dispensed with and the sixteen tanks were loaded by 1130, 3 Decem- ber. This was fortunate, because the 57th Ordnance Recovery Company Was under strict orders to leave the Pyongyang area not later than 1200. Banks notified the RTO when the tanks were loaded. At the same time he stressed the impor tance of getting the tanks out. Banks, ho w- Ordnance Corps 135 ever, got the impression that the tanks would not receive a sufficiently high priority, and he then attempted to telephone the I Cor ps ordnance officer (Lt.Col. Herbert W. Wurtzler). Though Colonel Wurtzler was not at his of fice, the message w as relayed to him. He notif ied Eighth Army headquarters that the tanks were loaded and ready to go. They assured him that every effort would be made to get a locomoti ve to move the tanks south. The RTO at Sariwon personally informed Colonel Wurtzler that he would send a locomotive to Sadon station. Three engines were dispatched on 4 December, but on 4 December, as the last train w ent south, the tanks were still at Sadon. On 6 December, the ordnance section of I Cor ps received a report from the Air Force that it had destro yed sixteen U.S. tanks near Pyongyang. This was the f ate of the tanks the 57th had tried so g al- lantly to save.

7. Operation Failure Anonymous

Many truck companies and battalions in Korea did not establish adequate preventive maintenance programs. The result of this was frequent truck failures, expensive repairs, and threatened failure of their transportation mission. The primary equipment of a tr uck company is the GMC 1 2- /2-ton truck—the Army’s work horse—one of our finest pieces of equipment. I believe every maintenance officer will agree that the “Gimmy” is a rugged vehicle, but even the most rugged piece of mechanical equipment must have maintenance or it will not operate long. The truck companies had a difficult, demanding job hauling supplies over long, rough, mountain roads. On their shoulders often rested the responsibility for the success or failure of an operation. It was most important that each truck be so maintained that it could deliver its criti-cal load of supplies at its destination at the proper time. One would expect that personnel of the tr uck companies and battalions, knowing the importance of their mission, would realize the need of sound operating procedures and scheduled maintenance. Actually, the story was just the re verse. Neither at the battalion nor at the company level was there any evidence of a definite preventive maintenance program. 136 Combat Support in Korea

There are many examples to illustrate this disregard for preventive maintenance.1 A company commander was heard to say: “How can I do any preventive maintenance on my vehicles? I never see them until they have broken down.” Another said, “We are too busy; we just can’t take time.” Still another, “There isn’t much use doing an ything with these vehicles; they were worn out before we came over.” In November 1950 a transpor tation battalion commander came to his corps headquarters complaining that almost all the vehicles in one of his companies were deadlined, and he wondered “how in hell” he was going to do his job if Ordnance didn’t keep his vehicles running. An ordnance officer was present and asked the battalion commander to go with him immediately to the tr uck company to inspect the tr ucks and f ind out what was necessary to put them back in shape. The battalion commander declined, but he did agree to telephone a list of parts needed for repair. The ordnance officer promised that the par ts and ordnance mechanics would be in the company motor pool next morning. The parts requirement was received and the mechanics, par ts and tools were on the job ne xt morning. The mechanics promptly discovered that the vehicles in question did not need the engines, axles, and transmissions that had been ordered. What was needed was a thorough check, adjustment, and general tightening—nor mal first- and second- echelon maintenance. When the Ordnance representati ve tried to f ind what organiza- tional spare parts were needed, he could f ind no stock records or an y semblance of a company motor pool. No one kne w who needed which parts. Later, he discovered a large box of jumbled parts and assemblies. Many of the parts duplicated the ones ordered by phone, and the stock was far in excess of authorized allowances. In another instance a battalion commander w as quite proud of a maintenance program he put into operation. In his plan all vehicles of his battalion would receive their semiannual maintenance check at the battalion motor pool. The plan was fine as far as it went, but there was no adequate plan for the dail y, weekly, and monthly maintenance inspections. He made no provision for the vehicles while they were on long trips, traveling in convoy over exceptionally dusty roads. Poor road conditions often necessitate daily attention to f ilters, bearings, and bush- ings that ordinarily would be serviced on a monthly schedule. It is interesting to note that this battalion had to ha ve sixty engines replaced in one week! Inspection of the original engines showed that the engine failures were caused by lack of preventive maintenance and improper operation. On a second occasion this battalion brought forty-eight vehicles into an ordnance company one day for field maintenance repair. The same day the battalion’s personnel complained to 1 See “Equipment Without Operators,” pages 42-44. Ordnance Corps 137 the army transportation officer that they would not operate efficiently because so many of their vehicles were deadlined in Ordnance! Seventy- five per cent of the shop w ork could have been avoided if preventive maintenance had been done.

139

PART VII Quartermaster Corps

141

1. Division Supply Operations Lt.Col. Marcus E. Cooper, Quartermaster, 1st Cavalry Division

Throughout the first six months of 1950, the 1st Cavalry Divi- sion was so scattered that it w as difficult for its 15th Quar termaster Company to suppor t it. I recall that di vision headquarters, the 2d Battalion of the 7th Ca valry, and service troops were at Camp Drake; the 8th Cavalry and the 1st Battalion of the 7th w ere in Tokyo; the 5th Cavalry was at Camp McGill; Di vision Artillery was at Camp Dre w. Early in May the 8th Cavalry was shifted with elements going to Camp Zama and Camp King. About 25 Januar y 1950, post quar termasters were assigned and army service units began supplying each of those camps. This left the division quartermaster with technical responsibility but no operational control of the di vision’s supply operations. The extent to which this separation of functions took place is illustrated in the case of the quartermaster of Camp Drake. When the executive officer of the 15th QM Company was assigned this task, he was transferred to the 8013th Army Unit. In 1950 the 1st Cavalry Division was emphasizing combat training of its units. The 15th QM Company, relieved of most of its operational responsibilities, spent most of its time lear ning combat principles. Little practical training was possible for the class II and class IV supply sections, but the class I and III g roups were able to work in the maneuver area at Camp McNair. My company commander (Capt. Jenis C. McMillan) and I were working on a plan to train the quar termaster personnel by attaching them to the army service units when the Korean action broke out. I believe it was 1 July 1950 that the division was alerted for an amphibious landing in Korea. Our original landing site was described only as “somewhere along the w est coast of K orea.” The assault wave was to 141 142 Combat Support in Korea outload by 14 July, the second wave on the 16th or 17th, and the third wave several days later. I had been taught at the Command and General Staff College that it required sixty to ninety days to plan and outload a division for an assault landing. As this operation w as to be accomplished in eight to tw elve days, it seemed to be a tremendous task. It was. The 1st Cavalry Division’s strength was only 13,000 or 14,000, with a T/O&E in propor tion. Quartermaster requirements for the landing were 22 days of class I (7 days operational, 15 days class B rations); 30 days maintenance factor of class II and class IV supplies; and 30 days of class III. Although there was short supply of the operational rations, class I presented few problems. There were plenty of B rations available. Class II and class IV were more difficult, but class III gave us the most trouble. There were two problems: how many trucks we would have, and how far they would go. First our tank company was taken from us, then our vehicle strength was changed from day to day. We guessed that ten gallons per vehicle per day would be normal at first and, fortunately, we guessed fairly accurately. I was charged with transporting class II and the operational rations of class I to shipside in the outloading. Army delivered the B rations. Class II and class IV were to be loaded by my personnel coming in with the third wave. I was allotted space for 65 officers and men and 28 vehicles in the assault wave. I elected to go, and chose the purchasing and contract officer (Lt. Charles Lambert) and 4 men from the di vision quartermaster’s office; the 2d Truck Platoon (Lt. James Evans); 28 men from the Supply Platoon (Lt. Albert N. Abelson); and the Field Service Platoon officer (Lt. George M. Gibbs). In the second wave my executive (Lt. Francis P. Cancelliere) and Captain McMillan were to bring the bulk of the quartermaster troops, while the remainder were to come in the third wave on D plus 5. Space for class I and class III supplies was authorized on each of the three waves, but class II and class IV supplies were all to come in the third wave. Each individual was to carry two operational rations, two suits of fatigues, two pairs of combat boots, and necessary underwear and toilet articles. Other clothing was to be carried in duffel bags. Vehicles were fueled and carried extra cans of gasoline. On the morning of 18 July the first landings were made without op- position, not on the west but on the east coast of Korea—near Pohang- dong. The shore party received class I and class III supplies and our supply section began to issue them on D plus 1.All units were issued B rations to maintain the two-day level per individual. Instructions were also given to use the B ration whenever possible. Quartermaster Corps 143 I anticipated that the division would remain in the beachhead area until the second wave arrived. The urgent need for troops near Taejon, however, made necessary the immediate commitment of our first wave. A typhoon delayed the second w ave, and the third w as still in Japan waiting for ships. On the after noon of the 20th, the 5th Ca valry Regiment started for Taejon. At about 2000 m y truck platoon and a suppl y detachment followed. The trucks carried 90 per cent class III and 10 per cent class I supplies, since we were less concerned with going hungry than with losing our mobility. I instr ucted Lieutenant Lamber t, who commanded this force, to estab lish a supply point in the vicinity of K umchon or Kwan-ni, the situation to determine which was the most desirable. That night the supply platoon began loading class I and class III in rail cars for shipment forward. I left the P ohang-dong area on the mor ning of the 21st with division headquarters. Lieutenant Abelson kept a detachment to finish the loading. At Kumchon I learned that Lieutenant Lam- bert had opened our supply point at Kwan-ni, and I sent this information back to Abelson. By the 23d we were receiving and issuing rations carried by rail from Pohang-dong. On the 21st I placed my first order for class I and class III supplies directly with the quartermaster of Eighth Army (Col. James M. Lamont). Although we had f ifteen days’ B rations coming o ver the beach at Pohang-dong, these were divided among the dif ferent waves and we dared not chance a shor tage. Army told me I could get B rations as I needed them, but few operational rations were available. I made every effort to have our operational rations forwarded from Pohang-dong in full- car lots. These shipments were issued only to units whose patrols, drivers, and men were normally away from their kitchens at mealtime. We also had a heavy demand for the C ration because its greater variety of meat items made it popular. The quartermaster of Eighth Army told me I would receive little in class II and class IV supplies, for his stocks were almost depleted. I didn’t worry about this because I knew I had a thirty-day maintenance factor coming in the third wave, and I knew each man had been well equipped when he left Japan. I would not have been so unconcerned had I known that the thirty-day supply would not arrive, and that, because of confusion in shipment, 70 to 80 per cent of the personnel of the re giments would not receive their duffel bags. The rocky hills cut up a pair of boots in twelve to fourteen days, while the rain took its toll of boots, fatigues, and ponchos. It was 1 August before we received much class II and class IV assistance, and by then we needed clothing, shoes, stove parts, and cleaning and preserving materials. On the 22d, at Kwan-ni, we opened the f irst cemetery for the division. We had no graves registration section or trained personnel, and our 144 Combat Support in Korea few graves registration supplies were with the second w ave. Eighth Army could not evacuate bodies, and we had to provide for our own dead. Not only were we short of experience in graves registration, but I had no manual covering the subject. Fortunately, the division G1 had a manual with some information and the division chaplain had a pamphlet. I sent Lieutenant Evans to Eighth Army headquarters at Taegu and there he obtained a supply of burial bottles, personal-effects bags, mattress covers, and burial forms. I searched the Kwan-ni area for a cemetery site but most of the flat ground consisted of unsuitable rice paddies. The most likely place for a cemetery was 400 or 500 yards from our class I and class II supply point, which was not ideal. G4 approved our location, and the first interments occurred on 23 July. We had no fingerprint kit, but we soon found that a regular stamp pad would work. Every man buried in our cemeteries was fingerprinted, regardless of whether he was identified or not. We made a careful note of all identifying marks, scars, and tattoos. Some 32 or 33 bodies were interred at Kwan-ni, only 2 of w hich were unidentified. Some bodies were returned by the regiments, some by the companies, others evacuated through medical channels, and occasionall y a driver would find a body along the road and bring it to us. We had trouble with the personal effects. If the effects were still on the body, we inventoried them. If the ef fects had already been in ven- toried, we checked to see that all were present and then forwarded them to Eighth Army. But ar my began to notice that our in ventory of money sometimes did not tall y with the amounts it recei ved. Several times there were shortages of five or ten dollars, though never was the complete sum missing. We could not account for this. After I left the division I heard that some of the men in the graves registration section had been caught stealing. We also had a case where a ring had been removed from the finger of a British major, but this occurred before the body reached us. I had heard that the body was being evacuated through medical channels, and w as present when it arrived. That night a friend inquired w hether a signet ring was among the ef fects, for he kne w the major’s family attached great sentimental value to it. The inventory did not list the ring, so w e disinterred the body to make sure it had not been overlooked. It was obvious that the major had worn a ring a short time before, but it was not on his body when it reached our cemetery. It was in Kwan-ni that our ration first included fresh meat. By mistake a carload of rations consigned to the 25th Division had been placed on our siding. The car, containing frozen ground beef, was not refrigerated, and it was obvious some spoilage had already occurred. I called army and received permission to utilize whatever I could. Mr. Kummer and his food service personnel checked each box, discarding all meat about which Quartermaster Corps 145 there was the least doubt. The over-all loss was about 35 per cent. The remainder would not feed the entire division, so we got in touch with the units’ S4s and told them, “first come, first served.” We had no trouble clearing the shipment. The bulk of the quartermaster company, coming in the second wave, joined us in Kwan-ni during the night of the 24th. We selected a school building as a billet but never occupied it. The order came to displace our class I and class III supply points to Kumchon because the infantry was being pushed back. Our evacuation was somewhat confused in this, our first experience in withdrawal. We issued two days of B rations to every unit that would accept them. This cut our load and at the same time insured against need if there were any delay in opening our new supply point. We loaded both the railroad cars and the trucks. There wasn’t enough transportation, so we had to shuttle with the tr ucks. We got all of the supplies out, b ut the last two trucks were still being loaded after the infantry had cleared the area. Several rounds of mortar fire landed nearby but caused no damage. We opened our new supply point in Kumchon without delay. Every- thing at Kumchon was kept mobile and, as much as w e could, we left supplies in boxcars until we actually issued them. Rations were coming to us direct from Pusan, but carloads of supplies from P ohang-dong, which had been delayed or misshipped, were still arriving. In Kumchon I found that the quar termaster of the 25th Di vision (Major John Pachomski) had his distrib ution point in the marshaling area. The desirability of our companies working together was obvious, and my company moved next to his. The 25th QM Company helped tre- mendously by giving us cleaning and preserving materials, soaps, mops, brooms, and a few items of clothing. While we were in Kumchon we began to receive our first shipments of fresh vegetables. These were airlifted from the hydroponic farms in Japan. The vegetables came in limited quantity every second day. Rather than issue a little to each unit, we rotated the delivery and gave enough for an ample serving. We had a standing priority on fresh foods for the hospital, then for the front-line troops. These vegetables were a real morale-builder. We opened our second cemetery in Kumchon on the 26th. It was our smallest, for by now it was nearly impossible for the inf antry to recover its dead as it fell back. It was in Kumchon that the 1st Cavalry Di- vision received Eighth Army’s famous “last stand” order which forbade us to fall back. This order was rescinded, however, and on the 31st w e moved to Poksong-dong for two days. In late August, division ordered 100 men and 4 officers of the quartermaster company to be held on five-minute alert. These men were part 146 Combat Support in Korea of Task Force Allen—our last reserve. Fortunately, this force was never needed. The Eighth Army supply points in Taegu were located in the railroad area. We got permission to locate our class I point nearby, and obtained the use of a siding and shed area for our class III supplies.The II and IV area w as six or eight b locks away from the marshaling yards. Eighth Army had five large warehouses for class II and class IV supplies, and it tur ned two of these o ver to us. In these w arehouses we stored PX supplies and beer—when they were available. To save needless handling, our supplies came directly from Pusan by rail instead of stopping off in the army depots. The fighting came close to Taegu and several nights enemy tanks in- effectively lobbed shells into town. It was a real convenience to have our warehouses near those of ar my. Army moved its depot troops out of Taegu several times, and turned its dumps directly over to me. In turn, I issued supplies to everyone in the area. At one time or another I supplied the 9th Inf antry (2d Inf antry Division), the 27th Inf antry (25th In- fantry Division), the 21st Inf antry (24th Inf antry Division), and numerous nondivisional units. Each time the depot troops pulled out of Taegu they would tell me approximately how many troops I would be expected to supply. When I submitted requisitions to Pusan the y were honored without question— even when I drew for 35,000 instead of 13,000. Class III items were usually in good supply except for an occasional shortage of 80-octane aviation gasoline. Some components of the B ration would build up and I returned flour and meat to Pusan whenever I feared the surplus was great enough to embarrass me if we had to move quickly. At Taegu we received our first bath trailers. The third wave leaving Japan received these, though not in time to test them. We found that two of the four did not work, and the diaphragms and other parts could be repaired only in Japan. So back they went. We used the civilian laundries in Taegu, but their capacity was in- sufficient. We hired men, women, and children, furnished them soap, and had them washing clothing by hand in the Sin-chon River. In September our first laundry unit was in operation under the control of Capt. Carl D. Hennessy, who had recently joined us. We continued to use the Taegu laundry, but now dispensed with the hand-washing. Soon we received six ice-cream machines. These were much too 1 bulky; two 2- /2-ton trucks were required to mo ve each machine. We turned them back to ar my immediately. In 1951, the di vision received improved, portable machines which supplied ice cream to the entire division on a once-a-week basis. Eighth Army took over operation of the Taegu ice plant. The medics approved the plant for sanitation and the engineers chlorinated the Quartermaster Corps 147 water. Ice was issued daily to every unit. An unusual use of the ice came when the enemy surrounded a company of the British 27th Brigade (attached to the 1st Cavalry Division for logistical support as well as operations). The isolated troops suf fered from a w ater shortage. Attempts were made to airdrop water in one-gallon canvas bags, but these split and the water ran out. One of my officers (Lt. McGail C. Baker) suggested that we drop ice. We placed 15- to 20-pound blocks in barrack bags and dropped them with great success. The truck platoon I had brought with me in the f irst wave was now strengthened by the arrival of the other two. One platoon I did not control, however, for it was attached to the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry. This battalion was kept mobile as a pan of the Eighth Army “fire brigade” system. Although we were short of trucks, we were not hampered since we depended on rail to bring us our supplies. Early in August I discussed with the Eighth Army quartermaster the need for winter clothing. Already it was cool at night in the hills where our infantry was fighting. Eighth Army was aware of the need and had established a three-phase program for issuing winter uniforms— contingent upon delivery of clothing from the United States on the dates requested. The first phase included the delivery of winter underwear, M43 jackets, and gloves by 15 September. The second phase was to bring wool clothing by 1 October. The last phase would deliver sleeping bags, pile-lined jackets, overcoats, and wet-cold climate clothing by 15 October. The underwear, jackets, and gloves arrived about the middle of Sep- tember and we issued them as fast as possible. Unfortunately, before all our clothing could be issued to the units, the break out from the Pusan perimeter took place and w e had no chance to complete deli very for some weeks. By 24 September, the 1st Cavalry Division’s progress was such that we believed it was time to push out class I and class III distribution points. Lieutenant Cancelliere and one of our new arrivals (Lt. Earl W. Gallen) located these at Chongju on the 25th. Our three tr uck platoons were with the infantry, and army furnished us two truck companies to move supplies. I stayed with the company in Taegu until 2 Octo- ber. It was about 130 miles to Chongju and bad roads made it a full-day trip each way. On the 26th, the division advanced more than a hundred miles to make a junction at Osan with the 7th Infantry Division, which had landed at Inchon. On the 29th, Cancelliere established another class I and class III point at Ansong to receive supplies that had been airlifted to Kimpo. I sent some B rations to Ansong by truck, but army stopped this. Division supply points were located at Taegu, Chongju, and Ansong, 148 Combat Support in Korea with supplies furnished from both the nor th and south ends. I had no communications faster than messenger, and I soon lost touch with the situation. I hoped that class I and class III supplies were being issued, and I learned later that the y were. One of our tr uck platoons returned on 2 October, and I moved the company to Suwon. I left enough personnel in Taegu to operate the class II and class IV points, for I w anted to be sure these items got forward to us. Small class I and class III distribution points remained in Taegu to supply the division’s rear-echelon troops, but had I known the situation forward I would have arranged for the rear echelon to use army supply points in Taegu. Driving north we carried enough winter underw ear, M43 jackets, and gloves to supply the units that had not drawn them in Taegu. We did not get to issue the clothing until the troops were in Kaesong on 9 Oc- tober. I found that on the rapid march of the division those men who had received underwear and jackets took care to hold on to them. Our Suwon distribution points opened on 3 October . For about a week we were issuing everything on hand and replacing nothing. Then we closed the I and III points in Taegu but left the II and IV supply personnel there until they could get the clothing forward. The shortage of both rail facilities and trucks kept us from moving the clothing at this time, even though the weather was getting cold. In late September, 3d Logistical Command opened at Ascom City— between Inchon and Seoul. I opened a class III distribution point atYong- dungpo on 5 October. On the 9th we started an all-class supply point at Kaesong, and here we opened our fifth cemetery. When we moved from Kaesong on the 15th we began a series of class I and class III supply operations that were little more than one-night stands. Nothing w as dumped on the ground, and we loaded from tail gate onto tail gate. We opened at Hanpo-ri on the 15th and closed on the 18th. We opened at Sinmak on the 18th and closed on the 21st. Hwangju opened on the 19th and closed on the 20th. On the 21st w e opened a distribution point at Py ongyang and it remained open until 4 December. On 30 October we were to establish a dump just south of Unsan, but the men found the to wn in enemy hands, so they set up some eight or ten miles to the south. On 31 Octo- ber, we opened a dump at Anju to receive airlifted supplies landed at Sinanju for I Corps. We later turned this operation over to Eighth Army. On 2 November we opened a suppl y point at P akchon but we had to evacuate it hurriedly the next day. The quartermaster company did not lose anything there. However, parr of the 8th Cavalry, one company of the tank battalion, and one company of the engineers came out light and fast. We had to replace a thousand sleeping bags, two or three kitchens, most of the mess gear, and a lot of clothing. The bulk of the di vision’s winter clothing w as still in the Taegu warehouses—400 to 500 miles away. As soon as the railroads began operat- Quartermaster Corps 149 ing as far north as Seoul, we moved several carloads of winter clothing to that point. That meant the clothing was still 170 miles from us, but division G4 began to canvass all units for trucks we could borrow to make the trip to Seoul. It was very cold now and everyone supplied trucks until it hurt. We sent 180 from Pyongyang to Seoul in convoys of 30 and 40. The roads were so bad that there was about a 30 per cent truck casualty rate from broken springs. Our boxcars had not been guarded on the railroad, and some pilfering had taken place. But we had anticipated a strength of 18,000 U .S. and 8,500 KATUSA personnel in our requisitions, whereas we now had 18,000 U.S. and only 3,500 KATUSA personnel. An officer in Pyongyang sepa- rated the clothing and issued it in the priority: infantry, engineers, artillery, other units. In no case did a service unit or headquarters draw anything out of sequence, b ut a fast-talking division headquarters supply sergeant almost succeeded until I learned about it. We outfitted U.S. and KATUSA personnel alike except that the OD 7 overcoats went to the U.S. soldiers and the men of KATUSA drew wool overcoats. After the rail lines were open to South Pyongyang, we received the rest of our own clothing from Taegu and also some from other sources. Soon we had an overage in certain types of winter clothing. Instead of moving this clothing to Eighth Army dumps we issued it to nondi visional units when directed by army. We also issued some clothing to Bri- tish and other UN troops. In September a wet-cold climate instruction team arrived from the United States. It consisted of Lt.Col. James P . Streetman and an enlisted man. We were in Pyongyang before they were able to instruct the troops, but fortunately this coincided with the issue of winter clothing. I believe their opportune lectures did much to prevent nonbattle casualties. In Pyongyang an attached platoon of the 549th Laundr y Company (Lt. Upshaw Sams) gave the division more laundry service than it could use. The tactical situation was so fluid that re giments often could not return their dir ty clothing. In their free time w e let the laundr y platoon work for anyone—after they took care of the needs of the hospitals. We opened class I and class III suppl y points at Sapyong-ni on 27 November and closed them on the 29th.The 29th was the day Lieutenant Evans’s truck platoon got caught in a roadblock while carrying troops of the 5th Cavalry, and the da y we began our long withdra wal. On the 29th, we opened a supply point at Sunchon, and hurriedly withdrew before we issued anything. At 1800 of that da y we were returning to Sainjang, and on 1 December our most advanced supply point was Pyong- yang. On 2 December we began to clear our class II and class IV supplies out of the Py ongyang area. I got in touch with the assistant G 4 of 150 Combat Support in Korea Eighth Army and requested ten or twelve boxcars to evacuate supplies, but he was unable to furnish them. I had two partly loaded boxcars at my siding, so I filled them as quickly as I could and they were moved that night. On the morning of the 3d, Colonel Streetman and Lt. W. T. Nieder- meyer found 4 empty boxcars and 2 gondolas of empty gasoline drums on the freight yard. The rail transportation officer agreed to let us unload the drums and use the cars and gondolas. We loaded them with class II and class IV supplies. At 2045, before our cars were removed, an ammunition dump several blocks from our warehouse caught fire. When the shells began to explode, the locomotives left our area. One or two of our warehouses burned and so did our gondolas. The boxcars were spared. On the mor ning of the 4th, the locomoti ves came to pullout our loaded cars. Unfortunately, the ties had burned under the track and our cars were derailed. We loaded all available trucks with class II and class IV supplies and I put a man out on the road to of fer units anything they would take. The only II and IV supplies we lost were those that burned in the fire. On the night of the 3d , and during the 4th, w e hauled class I and class III supplies from Pyongyang across the river. Again we stopped vehicles and offered gasoline and food. At 1800 on 4 December we destroyed the surplus gasoline and rations that w e could not e vacuate. This amounted to 15,000 to 30,000 gallons of gas—all in drums. That was the first time in Korea our company had to destroy anything to keep it out of enemy hands. On the 5th we opened a supply point at Namchonjon; we closed it on the 8th. On the morning of the 8th we moved to Kumchon (in North Korea) and sent all our class II and class IV supplies to Ascom City. On 8 December 1950 I was relieved of my assignment and returned to the United States on emer gency leave. Colonel Streetman w as assigned in my place. After I returned to Korea from my leave I spent eight months in the operations division of Eighth Army’s quartermaster section.

2. Quartermaster Problems and Services Lt.Col. Homer P. Harris, Quartermaster, 2d Infantry Division

Korea is a paradise for the ar tilleryman, but not for the quar termaster. I’ve served with armored divisions and there the quartermaster Quartermaster Corps 151 component is a battalion. I feel that an infantry division needs more than a quartermaster company. The infantry division has been beefed up b y the addition of numerous automatic weapons, recoilless rifles, bazookas, and a tank company for each regiment plus a tank battalion for the division. Our present ammunition requirements are beyond the hauling capacity of the using organizations, even when they are augmented by the trucks of the division’s quartermaster company. Artillery battalions are firing twelve thousand rounds a day, and the infantry is firing mortars and recoilless rifles at a prodigious rate. In the spring and summer of 1951, to meet the overload placed upon the 2d Quar termaster Company, we had to ha ve an overstrength unit. Instead of the authorized 11 officers, 2 warrant officers and 216 enlisted men, the division G1 knowingly let me accumulate a strength of 19 of ficers, 3 warrant officers and 311 men. By this method we approached battalion strength. Another way to support the division was to overload the equipment and overwork the men. Ov erloading has to be super vised, for while a 1 2- /2-ton truck will easily carry a 100 per cent overload without injury, it does have limitations. I caught people at an ammunition supply point 1 trying to load 14 tons on a 2- /2-ton truck! After that I made out a weight chart for various types of truck loads, and made the drivers responsible for seeing that extreme overloading did not occur. The overworking of men also occurred in Korea. In spite of an occasional movie or band concert, there was little release for the men, and no place to go. As a result, the tendency was for soldiers to work around the clock. Even now that I have returned, I find it difficult to break away from the habit of sleeping three hours and then w orking eight or nine. But, under the stress of operations lik e these at Hear tbreak Ridge, we had to work our tr uck drivers so constantly hauling ammunition that three or four accidents occurred in the mountains when the drivers fell asleep. The overloading of equipment and the overworking of men will not payoff in sustained operations. I have reported this many times when I have recommended a quartermaster battalion for the infantry division. In addition to hauling huge quantities of ammunition in K orea, we were responsible logistically for too many persons. Normally I drew rations for 35,000 troops and petroleum products for 44,000.Any way you figure it, that’s an army-size job. We supplied our own division, men of KATUSA, Korean laborers, UN battalions of F rench, Dutch and Thai- landers, and we were even saddled with the job of drawing rations for the indigenous laborers of a Marine division located fifty miles away. At one time, we supported two Marine artillery battalions with class I and class III supplies. The marines liked our support and were disappointed when they had to return to their own supply channels. The problem of supplying bulk rations was further complicated by 152 Combat Support in Korea the special rations and supplements w e had to fur nish the other UN troops. This varied from additional bread and potatoes for the F rench and Dutch to special spice supplements for the Thailanders. Our food was the best any army in the field has ever received. One actually got tired of so much steak, chicken, and turkey, and I occasionally longed for stew. Fresh eggs, when on the menu, were issued 225 per 100 servings, with 5 per cent allowance for breakage. We served ice cream w eekly to the troops. When the paper- container supply was exhausted, we distributed the ice cream in the regular insulated food containers. I was always worried about the possibility of sickness should the ice cream get contaminated , but we never had a case of this. My ice-cream man improvised a device to sterilize our serving containers by using live steam, and it was by this method that we eliminated bacteria. I steered VIPs away from the ice-cream plant to a void contamination and to avoid serving samples of our work. News of that kind might cause a “run on the bank.” In the fall of 1951, Maj.Gen. Rober t N. Young replaced Maj.Gen. Clark L. Ruffner as commander of the 2d Inf antry Division. General Young soon showed evidence of his airborne training. We began experi- ments in airdropping supplies and equipment to small detachments or units that had special needs. The flame thrower is one example. It is very useful to the infantry in certain operations, but is most often left behind because of its weight. General Young figured that if we could airdrop a flame thrower to the right men at the right time, it w ould be used. In addition, there was the need to air -supply patrols, outposts, and other groups in mountains too steep to be reached any other way. The division air officer (Major Linton S. Boatwright) worked with me on a series of experimental drops. I soon realized that the problem was complicated, so I suggested to General Young that two officers be sent to the 187th Airborne RCT to learn about airdrop. This was done. We received fifty parachutes, and after each drop we repacked them ourselves. Our cargo planes were the division’s own L-19s, and using six different packs, we loaded as much as 120 pounds under each wing.At the division airstrip we maintained a quartermaster detachment and a ready line consisting of priority supplies. When Eighth Army’s air section learned of what we were doing, it ordered us to stop, since our L-19s were not properly braced to car ry such a weight. When we received a group of new L-19s, this prohibition was lifted. So far as I know, we pioneered this division airdrop, but other divisions are using it now. Along with General Young’s airdrop idea came his plan for a dail y laundering of socks. Here the division’s policy of performing the maximum service for the individual soldier applied. Each company sent to the laundry a barrack bag containing all the socks w orn the previous day. We gave bundle service, returning the same socks to the unit that de- Quartermaster Corps 153 livered them. I know that full use was not always made of this service, but General Young insisted on a daily sock inspection and close attention to the men’s feet. We had only sixteen cases of frostbite in the division during the winter of 1951-52—and most of those cases didn’ t involve feet. Every report of a frostbite case w as followed by an in- spector general’s investigation, and the blame determined. Our quartermaster company set up a f ix-it shop along with its other services. Weather, dust, and mistreatment took a hea vy toll of typewriters, office machines, f ire units in f ield ranges, and Coleman stoves. We repaired all these items and centralized all replacement parts at division for that pur pose. Unfortunately, we were often out of par ts because our kits did not seem to contain the par ts we needed. Several investigations of this w ere made, b ut the situation did not change. I did not evacuate any of our office machines, for generally if we didn’t have a spare part, neither did the army service center which supported us. We did call on the ser vice centers for co vers for typewriters and office machines. When a machine came to us for repair it was returned with a cover—and a strong suggestion that the co ver be used. We pointed out that all machines should be co vered, even during the short period when operators knocked off for lunch. The 2d Quar termaster Company in Korea gave an outstanding performance. It supplied more men with more items and more ser vice than our doctrine ever anticipated.

3. Delivery by Air Capt. William J. Dawson, Jr., 8081st Quartermaster Airborne Air Supply and Packaging Company

The 8081st Quartermaster Airborne Air Supply and Packaging Company is the most-decorated quar termaster company in the U .S. Army, and the onl y Army unit in Japan to ear n combat credit. But if you ever saw these men at work, with their tails hanging out of the rear of a C-119 w hile they got their car go ready to drop, y ou’d know they earn their points, decorations, renown, and jump pay. We drilled into our men this motto: “Lives of individuals in combat depend on the supplies we deliver. Risk yours, if necessary, to get them there.” I reported to Ashiya Air Base, on Kyushu, on 14 February 1951. At that time the company had 4 officers and approximately 88 men. Capt. Cecil W. Hospelhorn, who organized the company, was in the United 154 Combat Support in Korea States presenting his packaging and airdrop experiences in lectures and demonstrations. The operational procedures I mention are sometimes modifications of the methods he initiated. At this time the company was commanded by Lt. Claude A. Jones, and I became his executive officer. We had a company headquarters, a parachute maintenance section, an air -supply section, a manifest section, and two air-delivery platoons. The air-delivery platoons were responsible for loading the planes and dropping the cargo. The 1st Air Delivery Platoon (Lt. P aul E. Smith), in addition to its general duties, was responsible for all heavy drops. These men were all old-timers and persons Captain Hospelhorn had known for a long time. The 2d Platoon (Lt. Billy G. Bishop) repacked all parachutes as its secondary job. Ashiya Air Base is on the beaches of the Sea of Japan, and the humidity there is high. For this reason personnel chutes had to be repacked every thirty days and cargo chutes every sixty days. We used Japanese employees to repack the cargo chutes, but the personnel chutes were never turned over to anyone outside the company. When I arrived at Ashiya the company was working full-time. The men were loading and dropping an average of 35 planes every day. That is beyond the normal expected capability of an air-delivery company, but this rate continued for six weeks. In February 1951, X Corps turned to airdrop to build a stockpile of gasoline and rations, since land transportation was inadequate. We were pushed to operate at this level and could not have maintained it had w e not been assisted b y several hundred Japanese civilians. Later our load leveled off at five to ten planes a day, four or five days a week. The air-delivery platoons worked in shifts. One platoon w ould do all the loading for a week while the other platoon had its men ride the planes and discharge the cargo. Assignments changed every Sunday. Dur- ing the time our work was so heavy it was normal for our officers to spend their evenings in the orderly room, where they could play cards while waiting for the loading orders to ar rive. We rarely bothered to go to the movies since we expected to be pulled out before the first show was over. Orders for an operation nor mally came to us betw een 2000 and 2400. Requests came through G 4 of Eighth Army, to 8247th Army Headquarters, Troop Movement Section, and then to us. Our f irst alert would tell us the number of planes to be loaded and the type of car go. Our manifest section, which operated on a 24-hour basis, would receive the serial number of each plane, its capacity , the amount and type of cargo it would carry, and the on-station time (an hour before take-off). The capacity of planes varied greatly—largely because of fuel loads. The manifest section worked with these data, brok e down the loads, and Quartermaster Corps 155 make a working manifest for each plane.They followed a few simple rules. For example, gasoline and rations w ere not to be loaded in the same plane, but gasoline and ammunition could go together. While the manifest section w as working, the commander of the loading platoon would send out his aler t squad to the planes to check the tie-down bolts and put in the rollers. Either the compan y commander or the executive officer called the motor pool and ordered the vehicles for hauling the cargo from the ready line to the planes. We had 1 available, on thir ty-minute call, ten semitrailers and ninety 2- /2-ton trucks. The drivers were Japanese who worked on an around-the-clock schedule. We always preferred the semis because they would carry more cargo, and their higher beds made it possible to slide the cargo straight into the rear of the plane. With the tr ucks we had about an 18-inch 1 lift. It took four 2- / 2-ton trucks to car ry the cargo to one plane, while it took one and a half semis to do the same job . We never placed cargos for more than one plane on a truck for fear of confusion. At the ready line the trucks were loaded by Japanese laborers according to the working manifests. While the trucks were being loaded and the alerted squad was placing the rollers in the planes, the loading platoon was assembling. The loaders reported to the hang ars at the same time that the car gos arrived. From a central point the loading of ficer (platoon leader) ordered tw o American soldiers and four Japanese laborers to each plane, with the trucks and cargo. As each truck was unloaded it was released. Before the loaders left the plane the y made up a w hite loading card gi ving all pertinent facts. They then retur ned to the hangar with the last v ehicle and reported to the loading officer to be assigned other tr ucks and cargo for another plane. The loading officer sent his platoon sergeant to inspect each loading job, and before lea ving the f ield he personally checked each plane. No one left the area until all inspections were finished. Normally a platoon could load five or six planes an hour. It was informally understood that if the loading crews finished their work before 2400 they would not be called for training until 1300 the next day. If they finished after 2400 the y were off all day. Actually, however, it meant very little to give them the day off, for most of their loading was done at night. Finally, under the pressure of work the training schedule broke down anyway. Shortly after we received an operations order we notified the con- solidated Air Force-Army mess of the number of in-flight lunches our men would need. The hour of assembly for the platoon assigned to fl y depended on the length of the flight. The normal time from Japan to drop zone in Korea varied between two and three hours. An hour before take-off all crews and quar termaster flight personnel w ere due at the planes. An hour before on-station time the flight platoon be gan draw- 156 Combat Support in Korea ing their parachutes, pistols, in-flight lunches, emer gency rations, and equipment. For example, if the drop w ere scheduled for 0800 and the flying time consumed two hours, then take-off was at 0700, on-stations at 0500, and assembly at 0400. On arrival at their plane the quar termaster crew obtained the white loading card, checked the cargo to be sure it w as safe, and then notified the crew chief they were ready. A copy of the manifest w as turned over to the pilot, w ho had the f inal responsibility for proper loading. By the time I ar rived at Ashiya the pilots had so much conf i- dence in our men the y rarely checked our w ork. I would say the best pilots still checked and never took our word for it, but usually the check was omitted. Our pilots were first-rate. After take-off the dropmaster and his assistant continued to check the cargo. While the plane was climbing they checked the front cables. When the plane leveled off they checked the rear cables. Periodic checks were made if there was any unusual motion while in flight. Usually the flight w as monotonous and often uncomfor table. The turnaround time was four to six hours. The cabin of a C-119 contains only four seats, and those are occupied b y the crew. If the Army men moved forward, they had to sit on the floor with their le gs out straight —and that is uncomfortable over a period of time. Lots of times there wasn’t room up front because of cameramen, passengers, or flyers riding to get in their flight time. In the winter, or when the planes flew at high altitude, it was cold in the back of the plane. And looking out the open end of the plane al ways made me ner vous in spite of m y being called “Ace” Dawson. Twenty minutes before we came over the drop zone the cre w chief gave us a signal and our men mo ved to the rear of the plane to remo ve cables. The ties between bundles were removed; then the forward cable safeties were severed but remained taut ag ainst the b undles. When everything was ready the dropmaster and his assistant mo ved to the front of the car go compartment and waited for the tw o-minute warning. At two minutes the bomb-shackle-release safety (a little red disc) was removed, and the men retur ned forward to await the signal to drop. Over the drop zone the plane came in at an altitude of about 800 feet and at a speed of only 110 miles an hour. This is dangerous flying because of the low altitude and near-stalling speed. When dropping right on the front lines the plane mak es an excellent target for small-ar ms fire. The planes approaching the drop zone came in trail at about 1,000 feet apart. This increased their accuracy but it also added to the danger of collision or other accident. At the instant the bell rings the pilot pulls up the nose of the Quartermaster Corps 157 plane and jams the throttle open. This lurch causes the load to mo ve down the rollers in the floor and out the open end of the plane. The dropmaster and his assistant r un to the rear of the plane and count the bundles as they open, so the y can f igure the number of malfunctions. The rate normally ran to about 3 per cent. After the count it w as necessary to reach out of the open end of the plane and pull in the static lines. If any of the cargo failed to clear from the plane the dropmaster informed the crew chief, who told the pilot to mak e another run. Then it was just a matter of fl ying home, checking in the equipment, and waiting for the next day—unless there was a second flight. These are the broad outlines of the air -delivery system, but of course there were many ramifications and problems. To speed up operations we normally kept all classes of supplies packaged and ready to drop on our ready line. The ready line w as actually a small dump with the supplies on skids and the ropes tied. We ran out of containers and used rope to hold the items to gether. In fact, we used nine million feet of rope—some 1,700 miles of it—in one year. Most of the packaging was done by Japanese, and the y were good at it. Without their help w e could have never packaged the loads we did. Parachutes are expensive, the large G-11 costing $1,300. Some idea of the cost of our operation can be obtained from these f igures: we dropped 73,000 G-1 chutes (24 feet) w hich cost $43 each, and 70,000 G-9 chutes (18 feet), each costing $25. Dealing in those numbers and costs, it was essential to get the chutes retur ned from the drop zone whenever possible. Each division receiving a drop was supposed to get the parachutes to the nearest air base, and from there it w as up to the Air Force to return them to Ashiya. No one really knows how good our recovery rate was, but I’d guess perhaps 40 per cent. Although the Air Force was given the drop-zone location, the e x- act spot was marked on the g round with a T panel. Soon the Chinese got wise to this system, and they placed panels and received several of our drops. Then it became customar y to have an Air Force Mosquito plane meet the C-119s ten minutes away from the drop zone and escort them in. On rear-area flights we sometimes dropped cargo along the sides of airfields. Our men tried to see ho w close the drop came to the T and sometimes they could see that it w ent wide. When the unit being supplied was on the line this sometimes meant the y could not gather the supplies. They immediately notified army G4, who passed the message to the 8247th, and then w e got it. The notification of a bad drop nor mally reached the company before the planes returned. If it appeared to have resulted from a pilot failure, the Air Force usually made the same crew fly the second mission and hit the drop zone. Usually we sent our same 158 Combat Support in Korea men along. But when a plane developed engine trouble and had to jetti- son its cargo and limp home, we had someone else go on the replacement flight. Sometimes the f irst effort to drop the car go would be ineffective and the plane would have to make several passes over the DZ. One officer normally flew each day for morale purposes, and when an officer flew he took the place of an enlisted man and car ried out the same duties. In November 1951, CWO Byron Kirkman and I were flying a mission together. We carried concertina wire for use along the Imjin Ri ver. The coils were wide and the bundles o verlapped in the center of the plane. Just as the plane star ted to dump its load w e hit an air pock et and the wire jammed. Nothing went out on that pass, so w e notified the crew chief, then went to the rear to loosen the wire. The best we could do was to drop one bundle from each side of the plane on each pass. It took five more passes to complete the job. On my last flight there w ere six planes in the flight and the drop was on the front line. To hit the DZ w e had to cross into enem y territory after the drop. The lead pilot did not gi ve the signal to drop. Maybe the DZ w asn’t marked, because the other pilots follo wed his lead. We moved over enemy territory going 110 miles per hour at 800 feet. Enemy small arms cut up to thirty holes in each plane. In my plane, the Plexiglas windshield was shattered and both pilots were seriously cut in the face. The sergeant with me was wounded, and only the chute he wore saved his life. One other dropmaster was injured. In spite of the fire and their wounds, the pilots tur ned, made another sweep over the DZ, dropped their cargos, went again over the enemy, and flew back to Japan. When we reached Ashiya Air Base all the emergency crews and ambulances were waiting and I felt as though we had returned from a bombing mission. While no one was killed on this flight, we did have two dropmasters killed in May 1951, when a failure to stop our artillery fire allowed one C-119 to be hit. A second plane crashed right behind the f irst. On this day, fortunately, we had only one soldier in each plane.We had five other emergency free-fall drops when our men bailed out of falling planes. We had three or four more men w ounded on flights, and of course w e had the famous case of Sgt. Robert Hale and Corporal Page who “just happened” to fallout of their plane right after they had dropped a cargo to the 187th Airborne RCT. Page was back in tw o days, but Hale w as wounded by a sniper and did not retur n to duty for weeks. We took no disciplinary action, but we never believed their story of their “fall.” Jumping wasn’t much to these men, for all were rated. We did a lot of jumping—even on Saturdays and Sundays if business wasn’t too heavy. We landed on the beach along the ocean, and sometimes we alerted the air-sea rescue people and jumped into the ocean for practice. We never Quartermaster Corps 159 had any casualties in our unit, but one lieutenant colonel w ho got permission to jump with us was killed on a water jump when he became confused and inflated his Mae West before he got out of his harness. We tested a lot of Japanese parachutes for G 4, and some of them were pretty good. We also ran a lot of tests to deter mine what items could be given a free drop. Concertina wire was dropped free but broke its securing wires and unra veled. What a mess! To counteract this w e placed small chutes on the wire—just enough to slo w it down. Canned rations smashed badly when dropped free. The new rubber containers for water landed in good shape, but they were small and frequently were lost. Blankets and all types of clothing came through the free-drop process very well. One of our men (Sergeant Gordon) devised a bomb-shackle release that worked well in loosening car go. The load was emptied by nosing the plane up. This was simpler than the standard practice of having the pilot operate the glider-tow device and sending out a pilot chute to pull out the cargo. We showed the Gordon device to one observer who came over from The Quartermaster School, and we even gave him one, but it hasn’t been adopted. One thing our men were proud of was the magazine drops. Knowing that men on the front appreciate an y kind of reading, w e used to tie bundles of magazines into the cargoes we dropped. We heard from those men at times, and their appreciation made us feel good. In spite of continuous hazards and combat rating, we lived the Air Force life and came home to clean sheets, hot meals, and mo vies. Helping the infantry out there made us feel more a part of it.

4. Service Company Runs Depot Lt. John Douthitt, 545th Quartermaster Service Company

The 545th Quartermaster Service Company was an integrated unit with Negro and white officers and enlisted men. At various times men of both races held the positions of compan y commander and f irst sergeant, but the w hites held a g reater relative proportion of the non- commissioned ratings. There was no problem of the men getting along, although some dissatisfaction existed among a small minority of whites because they were serving in an integrated unit. We had only one period of tension—after a f ight—but it did not last long. At no time did race antagonism impede our work. The mission of a quartermaster service company is to provide a labor force for attachment to depots and other installations. But from the 160 Combat Support in Korea time the 545th withdrew from Pyongyang, it was assigned missions very different from its intended one. F or a year we operated major suppl y depots ourselves. This difference was especially evident at Chunchon. The company reached Chunchon on 23 Jul y 1951, with instr uctions to open a class I and class III suppl y point. When we arrived we found only a rice paddy. We had just three days in which to receive our supplies, organize our depot, and be gin to issue rations. On the 26th we issued rations to 26,000 troops, and on the next day to 50,000. Dur- ing the fall of 1951 we were supplying 90,000 troops, including three divisions and adjacent units. As soon as we arrived at Chunchon, we received ninety rail cars of supplies, and our battalion commander was yelling for the return of the empties. Little local labor was available, so we put every man on the job, including the first sergeant and the cooks. We cleared our siding in forty- eight hours! On the 25th we received our first refrigerated supplies, and by the 26th we had ten to twelve carloads of perishables. We had no refrigeration facilities or additional ice, and this w as the hottest par t of the summer. We issued perishables as fast as we could, and salvaged ice from every car unloaded. Eventually we received a half car of ice, and that was a help. It was a close race between issuance and spoilage, but we won. We kept a veterinarian busy inspecting the food before w e released it. A month later we received a number of permanent refrigerators and an engineer to service the machinery. We opened our Chunchon supply point with 3 officers and 165 men. In the next few months we received 3 additional of ficers while the enlisted strength varied between 170 and 190. This becomes significant if two facts are kept in mind. First, this company was doing a job not suited to its organization, training, or strength. Secondly, 90,000 troops were being supplied by one company. At Wonju, 8,000 to 10,000 troops were supplied by a service company minus one platoon, a subsistence company minus a platoon, a petroleum platoon, and a refrigeration platoon. While we carried out our mission, our overload of work led to certain problems. Security was one. We were augmented by a few Korean National Police, but they controlled only Koreans and would not halt Americans who entered our area illegally. Our men also suffered from a lack of time of f. They worked seven days a week and had no other outlet for their ener gy. A leave in Japan every six months was not enough. Some visited that ine vitable Korean shack which was set up in the neighborhood of our installations. There they found liquor and prostitutes. We had several men ill from bad liquor and several cases of venereal disease. We also had several cases of drug addiction. Quartermaster Corps 161 A few men of the 545th w ere difficult to control. The working, living and recreational facilities could not be improved, and Eighth Army would not allow us to use confinement to enforce discipline. Company punishment meant nothing, yet confinement was not authorized unless a dishonorable discharge or a bad-conduct discharge followed. Our battalion tried to bring pressure on offenders by ordering a delay in rotation for a man w ho committed a cour t-martial offense. This was counter- manded by Eighth Army, even though it brought results. In Korea the 545th had no shor tage of reports. The company commander, the f irst sergeant, and two clerks were kept busy with paper work, and later an administrati ve officer was assigned to us full-time. We had to prepare tw enty-one different monthly reports, and many daily and weekly reports. Battalion finally had to send us a calendar each month showing the date on which each report was due.

5. Testing Equipment in Korea Capt. Fred C. Jacoby, Observer for The Quartermaster Board

I was sent to K orea with a detachment of enlisted men in March 1951 to conduct a special series of on-the-spot tests of equipment for The Quartermaster General and The Quartermaster Board. After I received my instructions in Washington and Fort Lee, I entrained for Oakland, California. At the Oakland Quartermaster Depot the equipment to be tested arrived direct from the manuf acturers. I received the following untested items: 130 unit burners for field ranges, 5 cabinets for a new field range, 1,000 one-burner stoves for small detachments, 5 cleaners for 55-gallon drums, and 150 rain suits. All this material was loaded on board a cargo vessel. My men accompanied the equipment but I fle w to Japan to repor t to the quartermaster of General Headquar ters, Far East Command. In Tokyo I was told to repor t to the quar termaster of Eighth Army and work out the details of the testing pro gram direct. Eighth Army designated the 7th Infantry Division as the testing organization. When the test equipment arrived at Yokohama it was transferred to a ship sailing to Korea. At Pusan all of my equipment, except the drum cleaners and field-range cabinets, was loaded on trucks and taken to the 7th Division. The men of the 7th Division were pleased to have been selected to make the test. The division commander personally assisted in the selec- 162 Combat Support in Korea tion of units to use the equipment. The burners for the f ield ranges (which were installed in the standard-type range) and the one-bur ner stoves went primarily to the infantry. The rain suits were issued to the engineers, military police, and the reconnaissance company. I stayed most of the time in the di vision’s area, checking the users’ opinions of the equipment and examining items for evidence of wear. The one-burner stoves, the bur ners for f ield ranges, and the rain suits were well liked. I recommended one modification to the field-range burner as the result of a f ire. I left all the test items with the 7th Di vision when I returned to the United States, except representative samples brought back for study. The gasoline-drum cleaners had been distributed in Pusan and Osan and were well liked except that they would not work on nonstandard drums manufactured in Japan. I recommended a slight modification that would allow the cleaners to be used with any drum. The cabinets for the field ranges were recalled for modification before I finished my testing. I feel that this testing pro gram was quite successful. The realistic conditions were the key to this. The trip overseas, with its transship- ments, demonstrated that the test items w ere capable of standing actual wear and tear. The men who made the tests li ved or worked with each item all the time and not just during w ork hours. Troops in the field are always critical in their judgment of equipment and most out- spoken in expressing their likes and dislikes. When they said they liked a fire-burner, I knew they weren’t trying to spare my feelings or hold onto their jobs. One element of the testing pro gram deserves some consideration. The men who came into contact with the pro gram felt that the United States Army was sincerely interested in their w elfare. They felt they were being consulted by the high command about an item, and not being given something that looked good to a desk soldier being pressured by a manufacturer’s agent. The final seal of approval of a product came when men from adjacent units ask ed me when each item w ould be available for issue. I could only give the stock answer: “Soon, I hope.”

6. Rations in Korea Major Lawrence Dobson, Observer for The Quartermaster Gen- eral. (From an oral report, 25 April 1951.)

To accomplish my subsistence and packaging mission, I visited the three corps headquarters, all division headquarters, and units within Quartermaster Corps 163 the divisions. In addition, I visited all the ar my supply points and the mobile bakeries. I would like to start with a discussion of the operational ration since I feel that was the major portion of my mission. As you have heard, the troops in Korea are fed tw o hot meals a da y whenever it is tacticall y possible. It is desirable, of course, to have three hot meals, but we say a minimum of two: normally, breakfast and supper . Noon meals are an operational ration. Hot meals were started by necessity because of a shortage of operational rations. Today we have plenty of rations, b ut the troops and the leaders appreciate the benefit of kitchen-prepared meals. It is a terrific morale builder among the forward elements. First, I would like to discuss the 5-in-1 ration. During the last par t of February 1951, Eighth Army asked that no more 5-in-1 rations be sent to Korea. That was quite a shock because we in the States had always considered the 5-in-1 our most acceptable ration. Its military description said it would be used to serve small detachments—tank crews, gun crews, isolated units. I found that Eighth Army did not want the 5-in-1 ration because it w as not satisfactory for the forward units. The men of these units do not ha ve their mess gear or heating equipment with them; they travel as light as possible. Therefore, the 5-in-1 was difficult to break down and eat. I found that the ration was unacceptable when consumed cold. Still, that was the way it had to be consumed when it was issued to forward units. I found that the armored battalions followed the same system of two hot meals a day, so that a case of 5-in-1 rations would be the noon meal for three days for the five men of a tank crew. The first day they cooked a pretty good meal; on the second day it was fairly good; by the third day they had no food left. The tankers had to draw another ration, and there we have a terrific waste. Also, the men did not want to cook when they could take the C ration, open one can, and be done with it. The 5-in-1 was used in several cases as an emergency B ration. For example, the 31st Inf antry was well advanced when a thaw hit. Roads were impassable, the regiment’s kitchens were forward, and the men had to be supplied by air. So the 5-in-1 ration was dropped and used as a B ration. It was quite successful, b ut the mess stewards complained that there were not enough vegetables. Before its cancellation request, EighthArmy decided there was insuf- ficient food in a case for five men, and changed the basis of issue from 5-in-1 to 4-in-1. That again caused waste, since the accessory items— candy, chewing gum, cigarettes, peanuts—were put into the ration on the basis of five men. Still, four men used it. I said that the 5-in-1 was unacceptable cold. When heated, the men did not care for the beef and g ravy or the pork and g ravy. They complained that there was too much fat, too much gravy, and that the meat 164 Combat Support in Korea appeared over-processed—just a mess of shreds and nothing to chew on. As for fruit and jam—well, the best-accepted item is canned fr uit. You can’t give the men too much of it and, if you ask which is the most acceptable, they will think a while and then they might say “peaches,” or they might say any of the other fruits. Vegetables are the same as in the B ration, and are a matter of preference. Canned puddings and desserts were well received. The precooked cereal in the ration w as rated very low to fair. If the men had to add hot water to it themselves, it had poor acceptance. If the mess sergeants added milk and heated the cereal, it had very high acceptance. If only cold milk was provided, it had fair acceptance. In addition to the use of the 5-in-1 as a B ration, and because there was a surplus on hand, Eighth Army at present is making some forced issues of 5-in-1 to the troops, and is also utilizing it as the ration to feed troops on trains. For troop-train feeding it again had very poor acceptance because of absence of heating equipment and, in many cases, lack of mess kits. I would therefore recommend that the 5-in-1 no longer be considered a combat ration, but rather a ration to be used by small detachments in a semipermanent location with ample cooking f acilities available to them; and that the ration also be considered an emer gency B ration— one that can be moved in as I have explained. When we started, we had the C-4 ration. We procured the C-6 ration and, later, we had a C-7. The C ration is the most acceptable ration we have in use in Korea. Everyone likes it. The relative acceptance ratings of the meat items are: (1) beans and frankfur ters; (2) beans with pork; (3) meat and beans; (4) ham and lima beans; (5) spaghetti and meat; (6) hambur gers with gravy; (7) pork sausage patties with g ravy; (8) meat and noodles; (9) chicken and vegetables; (10) beef stew; (11) corned-beef hash. This ration is a combat ration, and one of its characteristics is its capability of being consumed hot or cold. The reaction of the men was that the only items acceptable cold were the three bean items. The principal complaints were against the meat-and-spaghetti and the meat-and- noodle combinations. Both items w ere too dry, and when heated they would bum. The hamburgers and the sausage patties had too much f at and too much g ravy. It is dif ficult to determine the acceptance of the chicken and vegetables. In the C-4 and the C-6 w e had a chicken-and- vegetables combination. The men disliked it. We had previously received reports on this, and in the C- 7 we have a product of the same name but from a different formula. The men interviewed who have eaten the C-7 reported that the acceptance on the chick en-and-vegetables was very high. It is a very good product. The corned-beef hash and the beef ste w had very low acceptance Quartermaster Corps 165 ratings. Part of this can be attrib uted to the fact that, when operations started in Korea, we had a limited stock of meat items to be issued in the B ration. Supply Bulletin 10-495 has the menus w e had planned to use, but we didn’t have the items in stock. We had quantities of beef stew and corned-beef hash on hand, so they were shipped. The men had corned-beef hash and beef stew; beef stew and corned-beef hash. So the principal objection to the corned-beef hash in the C ration is that it has become the Spam of the K orean campaign. Beef ste w-well, too much fat; very poor acceptance when cold. It had been reported previously that there was too much meat in the C ration. I found that for those men in the rear areas—those w ho used the ration only when they were making a movement—there may be too much meat. But we must remember that this ration was designed for the fighting man. He is a young man—old men cannot climb hills. Fighters work hard. They will eat practically all you can carry up to them. When talking to them, I asked, “Is there too much meat?” “No.” “Is there too much in the ration?” “No; we will eat it all.” Even to the cocoa disc and the coffee. If they cannot prepare them at the time they are eating the ration, the y will save them for later . An interesting comment was that they liked the cocoa but sometimes do not have the fire to heat the water. So the cocoa is being eaten as a chocolate bar. They wondered if we could not impro ve the eating quality of the cocoa disc and still save its quality for reconstituting it into cocoa. The B units—that is, bread-type units in the C-7—were slightly different from those in the C-4 and the C-6. In the C-7, we attempted to put in each can all the components that w ould be required for a meal, so that a man would not have to open a second can or open an accessor y packet. As a result, the arrangement of components within the C-7 was very well received and liked better than our previous arrangement. Also, in the C-7 for the first time we had a soluble milk product for coffee and that had high acceptance. The chocolate and the starch-jelly discs are liked. Complaints were made of the starch-jell y discs being too hard to eat during the cold months. Also, the men got a little tired of having the same thing repeatedly, and requested additional types of confection. Before I went to Korea, complaints had been reported that there were not enough crackers. I could not substantiate this. Colonel Jackson, of the Quartermaster Section, Japan Lo gistical Command, stated that some of the men w anted more crackers with the hambur gers and sausage patties. I heard one medical officer say he wanted more crackers, and he didn’t like the candy. He was the exception to the rule. I would say the quantity of crackers we have is just about right. 166 Combat Support in Korea I would ask a soldier, “Do you want more crackers?” “Well, maybe.” “What would you want us to take out of the B units so that w e can put in crackers?” “Don’t take out a thing. Lea ve it all in and don’ t increase the weight.” The most acceptable item is fruit. In the C-4 and in the C-6 we had two 6-ounce cans of fr uit. In the C-7 we had one 8-ounce can of fr uit. The first reaction soldiers have to the C- 7 is: “What? Only one can of fruit? “ Mess sergeants, platoon leaders, and everyone else complained. It was too difficult to divide the ration. They tell of fights among the men over who is going to get the fr uit. So I w ould recommend that in the future we change from the one 8-ounce can back to our tw o 6-ounce cans. When I asked, “What do you think of the individual combat ration?” the first thing said was, “Where is the spoon in the C-6?” And the next thing: “The C-7 is a lot better ration; it has a spoon.” As I mentioned before, the men car ry nothing. Mess kits are k ept in kitchen trucks. Soldiers are stripped down—no packs—just the clothes they wear. We also used to think a man w ould never lose his eating utensils. That is not so. They lose them, and unit commanders cannot have them resupplied as fast as they are needed. In many cases knives, forks and spoons are kept in the kitchen. At first the C ration came without spoons, and we got reports of men eating beans with their f ingers. One Marine colonel cut his finger in trying to make a spoon from the top of a can. I would say—and I am stating the opinion of everyone I interviewed—that plastic spoons are a must in the operational rations. In the past we included a can opener in each accessory packet. Every soldier I saw had a can opener in his pocket or on his dogtag chain. He was afraid he would not have a can opener when he wanted to eat. If he had a can opener and got hold of another, he saved it. My prize example is a colonel who had one can opener on his dogtag chain and nine in his pack. So my recommendation is that the can openers be reduced to either two or three per case and that they no longer be packed in the accessory pack, but be placed on top. The condiment issue in Korea has been very poor. The troops did not have enough spices, and those the y did have arrived spasmodically. Condiments reached Pusan in bulk, but there wasn’t time to break them down. In Japan a spice pack was made up—three thousand rations to a pack. I feel there is a definite need for a spice pack. If we ship loose condiments, they will get lost at a depot. They will not be broken down and sent forward. Supply points have difficulty in issuing them to small units. The cooks were doing a g reat deal of e xtra baking, but the y were not getting condiments. I found, in some companies, that when a soldier Quartermaster Corps 167 was going on rest and recreation in Japan, his company commander would have him repor t to the mess ser geant to deter mine what was needed. The company commander then gave him money from the company fund and the soldier bought condiments in Japan so the compan y’s kitchen would have nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, vanilla, maple, and the like. I think this shows a definite requirement for a spice pack. The fire units actually are holding up w ell, but spare par ts are a problem. For instance, the 3d Inf antry Division followed the book and issued all the spare parts. As a result, spare parts were allover the division but not in the place w here they were needed. In the 24th and 25th Infantry Divisions, the food-service supervisors set up equipment repair shops. Faulty field ranges, Coleman lanterns, and one-burner stoves were turned in to the re gimental supply officer, taken to the quar termaster when the regiments drew their rations, and e xchanged for serviceable units at once. It was surprising how few unserviceable units were in these divisions. The repair men are better mechanics and better at impro vising than the average cook. The cooks in the forw ard areas appreciate their position. P art of that might be attributed to the polic y in some di visions that each cook must go forw ard once a w eek and spend tw enty-four hours with the riflemen of his company. I found that the cooks are reall y doing more than I thought the y would. Our cooks are doing a marvelous job. They know how to prepare dehydrated eggs and milk, and ha ve made granular potatoes more acceptable when mashed than fresh potatoes. I recommend we reduce the quantities of fresh potatoes and limit the use of fresh potatoes to French fries and an occasional boiled potato. Cooks are baking pastry and rolls far more often than the menu calls for. The men like the baked products. I hope I have not left the impression that our cooks are perfect. Not all our replacement cooks are adequatel y trained. They can cook, but some do not know how to clean a field range. Others do not know how to light one. On care and maintenance of f ield equipment, not all have the knowledge and training. Some do not kno w how to put up a tent, and it is quite difficult for a person who has never erected one himself to direct a crew of Korean laborers who don’t know either. Field sanitation is sometimes poor. The plea of the people in the field to the food-service school is, “Give more field training.” The farther forward you go in Korea, the better you eat. In Pusan menus are planned for three areas: Pusan, Taegu, and north of Taegu. In other words, north of Taegu is the fighting front; Taegu includes Eighth Army headquarters and its supporting units; and Pusan is the dock area. When any item is in short supply, it is distributed f irst north of Taegu, then to Taegu, and f inally to Pusan. If the quar termaster had limited supplies of frankfurters and frozen turkey, the frozen turkey would go 168 Combat Support in Korea north of Taegu, the frankfur ters to Taegu, and cor ned-beef hash to Pusan. I am sure you have been told before of the method of feeding forward elements in Korea. The meals are cook ed in the battalion areas, then carried forward in jeeps as far as possible, and finally packed by the Ko- rean bearers using carrier straps or A-frames. Now, there are problems involved. Bearers cannot car ry water up to the top of the hill e xcept for drinking, and the y cannot carry a stove to heat mess-kit w ater, so no one on the hill k eeps his mess kit. The kits are all kept back in the kitchen and are carried forward with the food. This is a problem, since the meat cans do not nest v ery well. Fifty mess kits to tak e care of an average platoon will fill a foot locker, so the mess kits are carried forward in foot lockers, boxes, or duffel bags. They are washed first in the kitchen, but they become dusty on the trip forward. Everyone asked: “What are w e doing with the mess kit? It is no good. Throw it out. Give us a tray.” All except one cavalry colonel who asked: “What would the men do if they found some eggs? How would they cook them?” When I inquired where his unit carried their meat cans, his reply was that they kept the mess kits in the kitchen. I ask ed how they would cook the eggs then, and he answered that they might have the meat can with them. The bakeries are operating in the vicinity of the supply points. The bread is very good and the bakeries are doing a fine job. They are having terrific maintenance difficulties, but I found an additional prob lem. When I visited the 1st Cavalry Division, it was 93 miles from its supply point. Its infantry regiments were 40 miles from the rest of the division. That meant the bread w as hauled about 130 miles o ver the dustiest roads I have ever seen. All the bakery had to pack the bread in was kraft- paper bags sealed with gummed tape.Well, I’ll grant the bags could have been handled a little more delicately, but it was amazing to see the number of bags that became torn between the bakery and the units. Several times the surgeon came along and condemned some of the bread. There were a few people in Eighth Army who felt that the bakeries were not far enough forward. In one sense I agree with them. The main problem was that the road nets are so terrible and the bakery had to supply so many units that it could not get close to one division, because the other divisions would have too far to go. The average age of bread was five days when it was consumed by the men and, in some cases, it was running to seven days. Still, they liked it. To give you an example of how well it is liked, the French and Belgians, when they first came in, w ould not accept our bread , but would take bread ingredients and do their own baking. They are either getting accustomed to our bread or their cooks are getting lazy, because gradually Quartermaster Corps 169 they are reducing the quantity of bread ing redients they are drawing and increasing the quantity of bread baked by us.

7. UN Approval of U.S. Products Capt. Richard A. Johnson, Observer for The Quartermaster General. (From an oral report, 22 August 1951.)

My primary mission was to determine the degree of acceptance of Quartermaster Corps clothing, equipment, and subsistence items b y United Nations troops in the F ar East Command other than those of the United States. I visited troops from Turkey, the Philippines, Thai- land, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, India, Nor- way, Sweden, Belgium, and some forces of the Republic of Korea. There is an expression in Korea that if anything is “tops”—if it is really good—it is called “Number One.” When talking to UN soldiers, I asked how they felt about U .S. clothing, equipment, and subsistence. They answered, “It is Number One. ” But we know there is still room for improvement on everything we have. First, I will talk about subsistence. The remark was made to me several times that no army has been as well fed as Eighth Army in Korea. I think the Quartermaster Corps deserves a hand for the amount of food being supplied and the way it is prepared. In my opinion, the U.S. rations are suitable for all UN troops with minor changes, except for Oriental troops. The Turks will not eat pork, and the Greeks delete sweet potatoes, corn, peas, and other items. Most European soldiers draw additional bread, and those from Mediterranean areas draw vegetable oils and olives. Some of the extra issues are made from U.S. stocks, and others are shipped to them from their o wn countries. The Greek Government, for instance, ships olive oil to Pusan. It is then forwarded with the regular rations to the division supplying the Greeks. These supplementary foods are not a problem that need worry us in the United States unless we feed a much larger number of UN troops. Our rations are not suitable for Oriental troops because their basic food is rice. If the y get rice the y are happy. Anything else they draw merely supplements the rice portion of the meal. If you give them a fine steak, they cut it up and boil it with rice, so I don’t see the necessity of issuing them steak w hen they are going to cook it in that w ay. I feel some work should be done to develop a menu for Oriental troops if we are to continue to supply them. Start from scratch, find out what they like, and issue that instead of the U.S. menu plus rice. In our present system a lot of items are wasted. 170 Combat Support in Korea A special operational ration has been developed for the South Kore- ans called the 12-in-1, or J, ration. It is made in Japan. The Korean soldiers like it; however, like all combat rations; it becomes tiresome when eaten over long periods. No particular difficulty is found with the package marking.At first, when a Turkish soldier got a can of U.S. food, he wouldn’t know what was in it. However, after using a particular item for a month or so he learned to associate the writing on the can with its contents. So, if the troops are going to use an item over an extended period, there will not be any particular difficulty with markings. Next, I will discuss clothing and equipment. I am not b lowing the Quartermaster Corps horn by saying everything the U.S. has is the best in the world. But the U.S. items are generally of better design and of better quality than those manuf actured in other UN countries represented in Korea. For that reason, the UN troops prefer the American items. The Turks, in speaking of many items will say, “We like the U.S. item because it is more convenient to use.” In other words, our design is better. The main difficulty with U.S. clothing for UN troops is sizing. The Turks and Greeks are about the same size as American soldiers except that their feet are quite a bit wider. Oriental troops are smaller than the average American soldier and their feet are small but wide. So far as equipment is concer ned, many of the UN troops are not mechanically inclined or have not worked with mechanical equipment. For example, Thai officers say that many of their soldiers come from farms and have never used anything mechanical. They probably have been following a plow all their lives—and a wooden plow at that. So you will find they have difficulty with what we consider simple mechanical items such as the immersion heater, the Coleman lantern, and the fire unit. Rather than go through the ordeal of setting up the immersion heater , they go down to the nearest stream and wash their mess gear. Many UN troops do not understand the layer principle as we apply it to our winter clothing or , if they do understand it, the y don’t agree with us. They told me the y like American equipment because of its lightness, but they felt that for warmth they should have much heavier clothing—something that will k eep out the cold. They don’t believe that two layers of light clothing k eeps out the cold much better than one heavy layer. As much as the UN soldiers like to wear the U.S. uniform, when they go on leave to Japan the y want to be kno wn as Turks, or Greeks, and not as U.S. soldiers. They are, however, very proud of their association with a U.S. division, and will wear the shoulder insignia of their o wn country on one shoulder, and that of the U.S. division on the other. I want to mention that I think the United States Army has forgotten that the American soldier is also proud of the f act that he is an Quartermaster Corps 171 American soldier. Many American soldiers in K orea remarked, “Why doesn’t the United States Army have a uniform of its own—a uniform that every Tom, Dick and Harry in the world isn’t wearing?” So I believe some thought should be gi ven to esprit de cor ps in the U.S. Army, to give the American soldier a uniform he can be proud of—and that only he will be wearing.

8. Wet-Cold Clothing Indoctrination William F. Pounder, Civilian Observer for The Quartermaster General. (From an oral report, 19 January 1951.)

The primary reason for my trip to the Far East was to establish and execute a broad training program for all troops in Korea in the proper issuing, fitting, use, and maintenance of the wet-cold and dry-cold climate clothing. I left the United States for this mission on 22 September 1950, with 6 officers and 3 enlisted men. After arriving in Japan our patty set about estab lishing a wet-cold training program. Since we sent troops to K orea through the replacement training center in Japan, we first had to set up a training program in Japan itself. At Camp Drake we had our most e xperienced officer (Capt. James D. Norman) establish a wet-cold training program. We worked in spurts—sometimes from 0600 until 2100 or 2200—then waited until new troops arrived. Sometimes we taught as many as three thousand during two-day periods. During the slack periods we trained new instructors, for we realized that six teams would not be adequate in Korea. After the training team had its program well under way in Japan, the remaining teams left for Korea. There we established a training pro gram within Eighth Army, and within every corps, division and separate unit. We had training teams in the 1st Cavalry Division, in the 2d, 3d, 7th, 24th, and 25th Infantry Divi- sions, and in the 1st Marine Di vision. As we moved from division to division, the unit “next door” would hear that we had trained instructors, and would immediately request a team. We kept calling on the replacement training center for additional instr uctors and assigned them per - manently to divisions. We also worked with the lo gistical commands because personnel were being taken from rear-area units and sent into the combat zone.We didn’t have enough instructors for every unit, so we used “indirect training.” We did this in a large church in Pusan, where we spread the gospel 172 Combat Support in Korea of wet-cold and dry-cold training to the 2d Logistical Command. At least two persons came from each separate unit, and we trained 86 instructors. To help them conduct training in their o wn units, we equipped each with complete issues of clothing, an outline of his talk, and all his training aids. As the training progressed we realized there would also be the problem of instructing the other United Nations troops, so w e began to ex- pand even further. The first UN troops w e came in contact with w ere the South Koreans. To augment U.S. units, there were as many as eight thousand ROKs interspersed in each of our divisions. Only a few of these could speak English. We had to translate our talks and our outlines into the Korean language and have them published. We also had the talks distributed to the ROK divisions. Later we got in touch with the British brig ade, the Turkish brigade, the Thai regiment, the Filipino battalion, and the French battalion. I have just received a letter saying they are now working with the Cana- dians and New Zealanders. In all, the wet-cold and dry-cold gospel has been translated into Korean, Turkish, Spanish, and French. I said that we had six teams. When I left Korea there were seventeen teams in operation. We are proud that w hen the Chinese Communists attacked, we had teams with the 7th Di vision at the Yalu River, with the 1st Marine Division in the Changjin Reservoir area, with the 1st Cav- alry Division in the northwest, and at the front line with every one of our divisions. It was difficult to operate a wet-cold indoctrination program in the field, especially near the front lines, w here we had to instruct units as they came into reserve for an overnight rest. In Japan, where we could seat 700 or 800 men in a theater and show our movie, it was far more satisfactory. Our teams did more than just instr uct the troops. Sometimes the y helped the quar termasters prepare requisitions. At other times the y aided in locating and expediting shipments of winter clothing. It was a terrific problem to haul all this clothing long distances, over a disrupted transportation system, and a fe w shipments did get lost. Sometimes a unit had the clothing b ut could not mo ve it forward because of the presence of guerrillas. Since the division quartermasters were short of personnel, they gave our teams transpor tation and sent them hundreds of miles to locate the shipments and bring the clothing forward. We made physical inspections of clothing and equipment to separate superior items from old or inferior ones. This was extremely important, because we had several types of footwear and clothing. The old shoepac is not as good as the new type, and our men made sure the best were issued to combat troops. The teams made certain that circulars about the prevention of cold Quartermaster Corps 173 injuries reached the company level. Then we made spot inspections, beginning with the front-line private, to check on understanding and com- pliance with the circular. When our teams found noncompliance, they reported it to Eighth Army. We also checked to see that each compan y had a cold-injury prevention team of its own. Our teams checked the progress and adequacy of the sock-exchange system within the combat elements. Clean, dr y socks are impor tant in preventing cold-weather injury. It is not enough to put this in a circular. You must go forward and actually see that the units have set up a sock- exchange program. Our teams assumed almost complete responsibility for getting changes of dry socks up with the rations. We worked hard to insure adequate numbers of warm-up and drying- out tents and rooms. Again, you must go up there and be sure there are tents or rooms, and that there are sto ves. When a soldier feels or sees that he is getting a cold-weather injury, he needs a place to go where he can warm up and get a change of socks. The last function of our team w as to repor t the cold-weather injuries that occur red. The 24th Inf antry (25th Inf antry Division) in a two-week period had 169 cases of trench foot and frostbite, while a unit operating right next to it had only 20! These units were in reserve. When this report arrived, it was relayed to the sur geon of Eighth Army. A member of his office and one from the quartermaster’s office visited the regimental commander. Now let’s look at the results of the cold-w eather indoctrination. We have long been trying to get complete casualty reports from Korea, but it is difficult and we are getting them only periodically. While I was there I made a check into w eather casualties and I found that from 28 November to 7 December 1950—the period of the Chinese Communist breakthrough—there were 1,500 such casualties. Of these casualties, 1,100 had to be evacuated to Osaka General Hospital in Japan. We have another report on weather casualties after things quieted down. For the week 22-29 December, we had 223 casualties, 184 of which were frostbite cases. At the time I left Japan, w e estimated that weather casualties during the worst of the fighting in Korea totaled about 4 per cent. In winter campaigns in Europe and Italy during World War II, under conditions not so severe, we found there had been an average of 8 per cent of such casualties. We like to think that par t of this reduction w as due to our wet-cold indoctrination; not onl y by team instr uction, but by making sure that the sock-e xchange system, the dr y-out tent, and proper care were forced on the individual soldier. Now let’s look at some causes of cold-w eather injuries in K orea. First, I feel that many staff officers are ignorant of proper clothing needs for cold-weather warfare. In October 1950, at the time of our nor thern 174 Combat Support in Korea push, the troops left Seoul, Taegu, and Pusan—areas where the weather is comparable to that of Washington or Baltimore—and moved 150 or 200 miles north into areas with the climate of Maine—with only one layer of wool clothing. We discussed this with the staf f while I was there, and told them that cold w eather was coming soon. We explained that the supply of cold-weather clothing was a complex affair. I was told that, at this time, ammunition, POL, and rations had No.1 priority , and that when the cold weather came the supply of overcoats would be taken care of in due course. “The supply of overcoats”! The supply of overcoats is not all that is concerned in cold-weather clothing. The second cause of cold-weather injuries was ignorance and lack of supervision by troop officers in the wearing of winter clothing. In some areas, where the temperature w as zero, the of ficers told the troops to wear the combat boot in sno w rather than the shoepac because it w as lighter and would be better for marching. They did not kno w that a leather boot will get w et and soon freeze. No matter ho w many times you change your socks, you do not get a dry change of footgear. The third reason for injuries w as that the temperature w as extremely low at a time when enemy pressure made it almost impossible for some men to take proper care. We made a survey at Osaka General Hospi- tal to find out how the patients became casualties. We found three hundred of the weather casualties were men who had been wounded and, in some cases, had been lying on the snow, ice, and frozen ground for as long as two or three days. These men were in very serious condition and some needed amputations. We talked to others who had been wounded, and asked if they had had the two-hour training. We found no one w ho had not been indoc- trinated in proper clothing. We asked why they didn’t carry out their training and they gave several reasons. First of all, they didn’t know how close the enemy was to them and they didn’t dare take off their shoepacs for fear they might get caught in their stocking feet and ha ve to continue without footgear. Others, in the Marine division, had to go through a river about sixty yards wide and partially frozen over. One ten-yard section forced men to wade through water almost up to their knees. Some of the men w ere fortunate enough to get on v ehicles and get through. Those who were well trained knew enough to take off their footwear and walk barefoot through that water, dry their feet, and put on their footw ear at the f ar side. Others, who were not so w ell trained, walked through the w ater with their footwear on. They might just as w ell have been hit b y machine-gun fire. To make it worse, some of those who walked through the water got on vehicles and rode for several hours without giving their feet any exercise. These were the main causes for the cold injuries, and it showed that Quartermaster Corps 175 we needed training. Before Korea, our troops did not recei ve wet-cold training. Most of the troops w e are sending into arctic and w et-cold areas have been trained in the South. We visited the units that had trained in cold-climate areas. In the Marine units that had trained in Greenland , the 2d Inf antry Division units that had trained in the mountains of nor thwestern United States, and the 7th Infantry Division units that had trained in nor thern Japan, not one man became a cold-weather casualty! Think that over. You cannot make clothing and equipment foolproof under all conditions, so we must train our troops. That does not mean a tw o-hour instruction period. It means living under actual wet-cold conditions. And living under those conditions is an acquired skill y ou can get onl y through training.

9. Command Action in Korea Prepared for the Army Field Forces Commanders Preventive Maintenance Course, Aberdeen Proving Ground, 1952

Soldiers of the United States Army are issued large quantities of clothing and equipment in accordance with existing tables of allowances. The soldier stores some of them in his duffel bag, some in his cargo pack, and some in his combat pack.When the time comes to shake down to minimum essential equipment for his first combat, the average soldier is reluctant to part with many of the articles he has been issued. As a result, he attempts to carry on his back everything which will contribute to his comfort in the field. The soldiers of the 7th Inf antry Division were no exception, and they were overburdened when they landed at Inchon in September 1950. The inevitable soon happened: equipment w as abandoned. The commanding officer of the 32d Infantry (Col. Charles E. Beauchamp) determined to do something about it. During the planning phase of a later amphibious operation in w hich his unit w as to land at Iw on, Colonel Beauchamp limited the items his men could wear and carry to: helmet, complete with liner; cotton f ield cap, with visor; w ool muffler; two sets of winter underwear; high-neck sweater; pile field jacket; M43 field jacket, with hood; a pair of wool field trousers; a pair of cotton field trousers; four pairs of ski socks; a pair of combat boots, fitted over ski socks; a pair of shoepacs, with two pairs of flat insoles; poncho; mountain sleeping bag, with case; cargo and combat field pack; cartridge or pistol belt; 176 Combat Support in Korea canteen, with cup and co ver; first-aid packet, with pouch; toilet ar ti- cles and insecticides; individual arms and ammunition; C ration (three meals maximum). Colonel Beauchamp compiled his list after a consideration of what a soldier could carry and what was absolutely essential. Shelter halves, pins and poles, and intrenching tools w ere eliminated because the frozen ground would make them useless. Flannel shirts were omitted because of their binding qualities. In a showdown inspection, Colonel Beauchamp collected all items in excess of his list and turned them over to his S4. With the concurrence of the division quartermaster, quantities of some items w ere retained. Among these were 2,000 suits of woolen underwear, 4,000 pairs of ski socks, and 2,000 pairs of woolen trousers. A standing operating procedure was developed that established the various articles and combinations of articles to be worn. Experience had demonstrated that the combat boot w as better than the shoepac for marching and climbing the rugged terrain; therefore, Colonel Beauchamp directed that combat boots be w orn under these conditions. When the march ended, or a static situation de veloped, the shoepacs, with tw o pairs of ski socks and a pair of felt insoles, were substituted for combat boots. The regiment initiated a training pro gram to insure that all troops understood the layer principle of insulation. This was conducted by a wet-cold climate instruction team assigned to the 7th Infantry Division. Finally, Colonel Beauchamp directed that of ficers and NCOs mak e frequent inspections of their men to make certain his instructions were strictly obeyed. He placed particular emphasis upon the impor tance of foot care, including changing of socks at the conclusion of each march, and massaging the feet to restore circulation. Troops were also required to change underwear after each period of e xertion, when the situation permitted. The results obtained in the 32d Inf antry were noteworthy. Wan- ton abandonment of equipment w as practically eliminated; care and maintenance of clothing and individual equipment improved. The inci- dence of frostbite, frozen feet, trench foot, and other cold injuries w as extremely light. Through experience, the regimental S4 further reduced his clothing stocks. In time, other commanders in the di vision adopted Colonel Beauchamp’s methods. Quartermaster Corps 177

10. Clothing Exchange Lt. Col. Kenneth O. Schellberg, Quartermaster, 7th Infantry Division

We learned that the quartermaster’s shower and clothing exchange was a great economy in spite of the additional equipment necessary to allow the men to bathe and to launder their clothing. The 7th Infantry Division began its clothing exchange in February 1951. Before that each man wore and carried two sets of clothing, and reserve supplies in the division held at least one other complete uniform per man. When the clothing exchange began, we collected all the duffel bags and limited each soldier to the clothing on his back plus a change of underclothing and socks. Clothing at the sho wer points and laundr y equaled one half uniform per soldier. Thus the total number of uniforms per man dropped from three sets to one and a half. Our quartermaster company drew its four shower units in Japan just before embarking for Korea, but we didn’t establish a clothing exchange for six months. This delay was caused partly by inadequate laundry facilities. It was also a matter of selling the idea to regimental commanders. There were many advantages to the clothing e xchange system. It cut down the weight the soldier had to car ry; it also eliminated duf fel bags and the thir ty-man detail in each re giment to guard and handle them. This increased our mobility. The cleaner clothing impro ved the hygiene of the troops, and the automatic e xchange of clothing eliminated all requisitions below division. Exchange made possible early repair before shirts and trousers became unsalvageable, and it eliminated the old practice of mutilating Government property in order to get the suppl y sergeant to issue a new item. Reduced stocks also lessened the possibility of the enemy’s capturing valuable supplies. We learned that in combat there is no need to pub lish a shower schedule because company commanders prefer red to send men to get showers whenever the tactical situation permitted. From experience we learned that the shower units should not be moved farther forward than regiment. Some regimental commanders tried parceling out the showers for several days at a time to each battalion. This made for time lost in moving, wear on equipment, and ir regular treatment of the operators. Moving the shower into a battalion zone made it unavailable to most of the regiment; yet it was not always busy at battalion. It w as easier to transport the men than to move the equipment. The shower and clothing exchange was a great morale builder for the men. After an attack in which a regiment was unable to release men to Ret showers, we would augment its bathing facilities and see that every 178 Combat Support in Korea man could bathe and change within four da ys. Normally, however, the men had a shower once a week. Company commanders watched their men for signs of excessive fatigue and sent them to the sho wers when a relief seemed necessar y. Often a shower and a hot meal at regiment were enough to restore a soldier’s efficiency. If the fatigue were dangerous, the soldier could be sent to the regimental rest camp for a day or two of sleep, hot meals, and regular baths. This was an excellent way to prevent combat fatigue.

11 QM Service Center No. 3 Lt. Bevan R. Alexander, 5th Historical Detachment. (Narrative based on interviews of the following personnel of Service Cen- ter No. 3: Capt. Alfred G. Rollins, Capt. Henry L. Cody, Lt. Dewey Washington, Jr., and Sgt. Carrol L. Veach.)

During World War II, U.S. Fifth Army in Italy developed what became known as the quartermaster service center. The service center is a grouping, in one area, of separate quartermaster units that provide related services. After World War II, no service center was established until the spring of 1951, when Eighth Army activated one for each of its corps. The first to begin operations was Quartermaster Service Center No. 3: serving X Corps. From Eighth Army were assembled two and one half platoons of the 549th Quar termaster Laundry Company; one platoon of the 505th Quar termaster Reclamation and Maintenance Com- pany; one section of the 821st Quar termaster Bath Company; and the 580th Quartermaster Office Machine Repair Detachment. Of ficers of the several units took over duties in the ser vice center, with the commander of the laundry company (Capt. Alfred G. Rollins) as officer in charge. The officers and men of each unit cooperated so successfully that, to all intents and pur poses, the service center became a regularly constituted unit. The service center was laid out in a compact area near a stream.The laundry was close to the repair and maintenance platoon. The clothing exchange of the bath company was near the laundry. Mess facilities were centralized but apart from the operations area. The most impor tant service of a center is laundering. During the first nineteen weeks of our operations (1 May to 8 September 1951), the laundry averaged 13,617 pounds of wash daily, for a total of 1,968,730 pounds. Thus, 1,462,890 individual items were cleaned. The wash is normally received in bulk, laundered, put in stock, and reissued. When a unit or individual brings dirty clothing to the laundry, an exchange is made from the company’s stocks. Quartermaster Corps 179 Trucks bringing soiled clothing arrive at the laundry’s check point. Here a checker counts the individual pieces. The agent receives a turn- in slip which he takes to the nearby stock tent and exchanges for an equal number of items of clean clothing. The clothing is exchanged rather than returned because of the time lag and accounting. Since all clothing is of the same design and material, sizing is the onl y problem. In addition to the bulk laundr y, a small amount of bundle work is provided for units or individuals near the service center. At the laundry there are five separate washing machines. Each section contains a w ashing machine and a dr yer, which are individually mounted on trailers. Dirty clothing is sorted and placed in front of each of the washers. After loading, it goes through a nineteen-minute cycle, during which it is completely washed and 75 per cent dried. Then the clothing is placed in a tumble dryer for eight to ten minutes. The entire laundering process lasts less than a half hour. The dry clothing is ne xt taken to a nearb y inspection tent. Here each item is checked to determine whether it should be placed in stock, repaired, or discarded. If a piece of clothing needs repair, it is sent to the reclamation and maintenance platoon. The reclamation and maintenance platoon repairs clothing, can vas and heavy textiles, and shoes. A secondary function of office-machine repair is handled in conjunction with the center’ s office-machine repair detachment. The clothing section is equipped with four teen standard textile- sewing machines for use in repairing uniforms. All clothing received is inspected to determine if it can be repaired. Most of the clothing received comes from the laundry, but some repair work is submitted directly by units. The textile section is equipped to repair tentage and other hea vy textiles. The section uses two heavy-duty textile-sewing machines and tent-repair kits, which contain rubber cement, glue, and patches. The shoe-repair section is equipped to repair all types of service footwear. This section repaired 9,926 pairs of shoes and boots in nineteen weeks. Footwear is delivered to the section b y the agents w ho bring laundry to the center. If the boots and shoes can be repaired , they are processed and returned. If they cannot be repaired, they are returned to the sender for salvage through the regular supply channels. The office-machine repair detachment repairs all types of of fice machinery. The typewriter is the machine most frequently repaired because it is the most widel y used. However, almost anything may come in for repair—adding machines, calculators, mimeograph machines—and the detachment has even repaired a time clock. The greatest problem has been replacement of par ts. Until the fall 180 Combat Support in Korea of 1951 the typewriter-repair kits received from the Zone of the Interior were not much use. Often only two or three parts of any of the kits were needed. For example, in one manufacturer’s kit only the variable line- space clutch and the line-space-wheel assembly could be used, although the kit contained a hundred separate type writer parts. This was more or less true of other kits. A change in the method of procuring replacement parts has been instituted, and all replacement par ts are now requisitioned individually. Typewriter platens have never been available in Korea, however. Expediency has proved the best way to obtain parts for office machines. Damaged machines have been cannibalized, and the machine shop of the reclamation and maintenance platoon has manufactured some un- obtainable parts. The heavy dust, the high humidity , and the e xtremes of temperature have reduced the ef fective operation of of fice machines, but the greatest upkeep problem has been neglect. “People just don’t take care of their machines,” said Sgt. Carrol L. Veach. “Sometimes I’ll clean up a machine and tell the person w ho comes for it to keep it covered. They often reply, ‘Why should I worry about it? It’s not mine.’ ” Another problem for the repairmen has been the misguided effort of the novice repair mechanic. This character, when his machine begins to work improperly, takes it apart. He usually has it entirely disassembled before it dawns on him that he cannot fix it. Then, in its still disassembled condition, he brings it to the detachment, losing about half the parts along the way. Sometimes such a machine can be repaired, but often it can only be used as a source of parts. Showers and clothing exchange are provided for troops near the service center. The single shower unit is capable of serving 4,400 men in a ten- hour day. A man who wants a bath need bring only himself. The exchange provides clean clothing, hot water, free towels, soap, and even shaving cream and razor blades.

12. Pukchon Cemetery Major Jacob W. Kurtz, Graves Registration Officer, 7th Infan- try Division

The 7th Infantry Division did not have a graves registration section in Japan, and one had to be created before we made our assault landing at Inchon. I received ten men from various sections of the quar- Quartermaster Corps 181 termaster company—none of whom had had an y burial experience. I organized the section with a section chief, tw o clerks, four body proc- essors, two supervisors of Korean labor, and a driver. Although these men developed competence in their work, one sergeant was disinterested and one other soldier was an Army misfit. Before leaving Japan I assumed that casualties might be high and that burial items might not be supplied for several months. I requisitioned five thousand mattress covers and large quantities of identification tags, burial forms, temporary grave markers, personal-effects bags, burial bottles, a fingerprint kit, and an addressing machine. The supplies were carried jointly by the infantry regiments (as evacuators of bodies) and the quartermaster company. At Inchon the g raves registration section lear ned how to receive and process bodies. No channel existed for evacuating bodies beyond division, so we shared a cemetery opened by the Marine Corps. Our large stock of burial items came in handy here, for the marines exhausted their supply and called on us for more. At Inchon we learned not only from our own mistakes, but also from those of the marines. The cemetery was located only 250 yards off the main supply road and in view of all who passed. In the first days it was not possible even to screen off the bodies awaiting burial. I believe this affected many who passed. In October 1950 the 7th Division made its landing at Iwon. Here the division’s casualties were evacuated directly to Navy craft and the graves registration section did not operate until the di vision headquarters was established at Pukchon. Our section contained seven of the ten men who had been at Inchon, and we were familiar with our duties. We remained at Pukchon, e ven though division headquarters moved to Pungsan, and the infantry regiments were scattered from the Yalu River to Chosin Reservoir. Whenever possible, a division evacuates its dead to an army graves registration detachment. At Pukchon we did not ha ve this ar my support. On approval of the di vision quartermaster (Lt.CoI. Kenneth O. Schellberg) we established a division cemetery. I reconnoitered the Pukchon area and quickly found an adequate site, a half mile south of town and a half mile from the MSR. The dry, rocky soil had good drainage, and the area was not under cultivation. In Pukchon my section was quartered with the other quartermaster troops. We had a clerical office with the quartermaster company and an obscure building nearby for processing the bodies. Our operation was so quiet that few people noticed it. When a body arrived we encased it in a mattress co ver, if this had not already been done. We checked to see that each body had an emergency medical tag, and, if it did not, that the unit of the deceased sup- 182 Combat Support in Korea plied one. Fortunately, every American body received at Pukchon was identified. We then checked the personal-effects inventory to see that everything listed was present, and made an additional search to be sure no effects had been overlooked. We hired a dozen laborers to dig graves. While a ten-man section is adequate for operating a division graves registration point, it is inadequate for operating a cemetery. The Koreans were employed voluntarily and worked faithfully at a w age of two canteen cups of polished rice daily. We opened our cemetery on 4 No vember 1950. Four or f ive open graves were maintained at all times, and no body w as taken from the processing building to the cemeter y until all preparations w ere complete. At the cemeter y we maintained a p yramidal tent to protect the crews against the weather, and to screen the bodies during the brief period between their arrival and burial. No equipment was ever left in the tent and no guard was left in the area at night. When a body ar rived it was lowered into the open g rave, face up. Then one of my men would reach into the mattress cover and place the burial bottle, containing a repor t of interment, under the left ar m. The grave was closed and a temporary marker placed. Unless a chaplain happened to be present w hen the body w as interred, there was no ceremony at that time. Sometime during the da y of interment, however, a chaplain of the soldier’s faith came to the grave for a short service. If the soldier’s faith was unknown, chaplains of all faiths visited the site. Several times we had a ceremony in honor of an individual, but in each case it was after the grave was closed. A memorial ceremony was held each Sunday. As division cemeteries are temporary, regulations do not provide for any beautification. In digging graves our laborers turned up many stones. With these we built a cemeter y wall. Three flags flew over the cemetery: the United Nations color at the front entrance, the United States color in the center of the cemeter y, and the Repub lic of Korea color toward the rear. We closed our cemetery about 1 December 1950, as the division began its march to ward Hungnam. During No vember we had buried 50 Americans and 24 ROKs. Sketches of the location of the cemetery and a register of those inter red were forwarded to the Eighth Army’s graves registration section. Quartermaster Corps 183

13. Repatriation of American Dead Lt. Bevan R. Alexander, 5th Historical Detachment. (Con- densed from an article based on information supplied by Lt. Wil- liam F. Wurz, Sgt. James H. Deisenroth, and Cpl. Paul R. Im- walle, 2d Quartermaster Company.)

The evacuation of the dead resembles .other quartermaster operations—in reverse. Bodies of the dead are brought from their units to a division graves registration point, then evacuated through corps, army, and theater installations to the United States. The remains are processed at a di vision collecting point and for - warded within twenty-four hours to a cor ps collecting point. Accom- panying each body is an emergency medical tag, and with each shipment is an evacuation list. The list serves as a letter of transmittal. At corps the remains are forwarded to the army’s collecting point. Here the fingertips of the dead are embalmed and fingerprints are taken. The bodies are then packed in ice and shipped to Pusan, then to Japan. In Japan, unidentified bodies are examined by experts in anthropol- ogy, chemistry, and dentistr y. Careful records are k ept in hope that identification can be made. The bodies are totally embalmed, placed in military caskets, and shipped to the United States for b urial either in a U.S. military cemetery or near the soldier’s home. Under present policy, no bodies are being permanently interred either in Korea or in Japan. Personal effects follow a similar path. The property of persons killed, wounded, or missing in action, those who die of natural causes, and those who are evacuated through medical channels, is divided into two classes. Class I includes trophies, k eepsakes, and items of sentimental v alue. Class II items are those of specific value. An inventory of the property of each casualty is made by his commanding officer or some other officer. Every item is listed—even if it con- sists of only two pennies or fifteen pictures. If the money belonging to the individual is worth $4.99 or less, it is sent with his effects, regardless of whether it is in dollars, scrip, won, or yen. If the mone y is worth $5.00 or more, it is converted into a U.S. Government check. The effects of a person killed in action must be forwarded to his division’s personal effects section, usually within eight days. For a person missing in action, the time is twenty to thirty days. From the division’s personal effects section the articles follow channels to the rear until they reach the Effects Center at Kansas City, Missouri. Here they are checked again and arrangements are made for transmission to the next of kin. 184 Combat Support in Korea

14. Supply Lessons Lt. Col. Charles R. Scherer, Assistant G4, 7th Infantry Division

Korea made several things very obvious. We had forgotten many of the lessons of mobility and small detachment operations lear ned in World War II, and we had to relearn them. We found that units must expect to serve more troops and w ork with less cor ps and army support than Quartermaster Corps doctrine prescribes. Above all, we learned about distance. The occupation of Japan pre vented normal training. Under- strength battalions and re giments were scattered in small g arrisons around the islands. Regiments maintained separate posts and S4s operated the combined technical services. Commanders forgot that division would normally provide most of their supplies and services. Once the depend- ence on S4s was formed, it was hard to break. In Japan some of our technical services were performed by Japanese civilians. This was necessary because of troop shortages and the lack of qualified Army technicians. Our o wn men were thus prevented from getting the necessary training and experience. This, coupled with inadequate SOPs and field training, prevented the technical service troops on occupation duty from being ready for combat. The 7th Infantry Division was the last of the occupation di visions to leave for Korea. As the other divisions left, we were levied for personnel and lost many of our key officers and NCOs. This didn’t hurt the service troops as much as it hur t the infantry and artillery, but it did lower the efficiency of our division. We were preparing to go to Korea with a strength of about 9,000 when, about three weeks before our departure, we received 10,000 American and 8,000 Korean replacements to integrate into our division. The Koreans we received looked as though they had been herded together to get them off the streets of Pusan. They spent their first week in Japan in quarantine, since they had to be deloused and cleaned. Then we had to equip them completely. Japan Logistical Command did a wonderful job of getting the articles of clothing and equipment to us, but it was a real problem to teach the Koreans how to live in a camp. They could not speak English and we had few interpreters. Our instruction was given primarily by sign language and making simple mo- tions for them to w atch and imitate. We had a long w ay to go in tw o weeks. These men had no idea of sanitation, let alone the more complicated activities of military life. Yet high-level policy dictated that w e treat them as our equals in every respect. They were to receive the same Quartermaster Corps 185 clothing and equipment, the same treatment, the same rations. Later , they even had to have chocolate bars and “comic” books! We Americans have much to learn about handling troops of the so- called backward nations who may come under our control. They do not understand democracy, our ideals, our methods of discipline, and the forces that motivate our actions. The Koreans have not lived as we have, and our easy-going discipline did not w ork with them. In their own army discipline was strict, arbitrar y, and often br utal. They had been reared under such discipline and seemed to understand no other kind. The integration of Koreans was unsatisfactory. They ate our rations, rode our tr ucks, used our supplies. But e xcept for menial tasks, they were a performance cipher. We lost a great deal of mobility because of our overload of supplies. Our men had too much equipment in Japan and they did not strip down to prepare for combat. Re giments committed the same er ror. Used to depending on their own 54 sections for garrison supplies, they continued to carry large stocks of clothing and equipment in their o wn trains. S4s made “deals” in Pusan and carried their acquisitions around in their trucks. At Pukchon we found one regiment hiding three hundred cases of C rations among the men’ s duffel bags, while the division quartermaster was trying unsuccessfully to obtain operational rations! When the 31st Infantry was overrun near Chosin Reser voir, it lost ten to tw enty truckloads of clothing. Critical types of ammunition would be concealed by one unit while greatly needed by another. During our first six months in Korea, the infantry regiments did not trust the ability of their di visional service units to k eep them adequately supplied. Occasionally a regimental commander would test our ability to produce. One regimental commander, while advancing to the Yalu River against moderate resistance, insisted on 50 tons of 4.2-inch mortar ammunition. We figured he didn’t need that much, but we piled it right in his front yard so he could see w e could deliver it. Unfortu- nately, we could not e vacuate it when we withdrew, and it had to be destroyed. The artillery battalions near the Yalu River requested two extra basic loads of f ire to be stored in a di vision ammunition supply point, and they gave strong arguments for it. I had mental reser vations about getting so much heavy ammunition so far forward when resistance was light. When the fighting around Chosin Reservoir forced us to leave our exposed position on the Yalu River, this ammunition too had to be destroyed. All the hoarding and all the demands for e xtra supplies took extra transportation at the very time such great operating distances put vehicles in shorter supply. When we first came to Korea, division headquarters could move in 25 trucks, but soon it took 50. Everyone had acquired a 186 Combat Support in Korea Korean desk and chair. Regiments called for 200 additional trucks when they made a mo ve, although movement tables show they should have been able to motorize themselves with a 90-truck augmentation. Lest it seem our regiments alone were guilty of poor supply discipline, I will point out that some of the patterns of waste were established at the top. Higher headquarters sometimes caused us to overload our units. Once, while inspecting a unit, a general officer found a man who had only two pairs of socks. He ordered that every man in the division carry six pairs! We had to issue these over the protest of commanders who knew that their men would soon throwaway the extra pairs. Colonel S. L. A. Marshall (in The Soldier’s Load and the Mobility of a Nation) is right in his statement that when you overload a soldier you decrease his efficiency. Yet we had pressure in 1950 to draw every piece of impedimenta that the Army designed. In Korea there were some increases in our loads that were very necessary and justifiable, such as tents and stoves. The extreme cold of northern Korea made it absolutel y essential to ha ve shelter throughout the division. It was necessary that each infantry platoon have a squad tent and stove so it could rotate its men and allo w them to get w arm. But enough tents for a di vision certainly complicated our transportation situation. The distance from army supply dumps to us made it necessar y for quartermasters to car ry more clothing, shoes, mess gear , stove parts, and other supplies than normal. We tried to get permission to store these stocks in boxcars on sidings, but this was refused. We usually think of the compan y or platoon as being the smallest work unit among service troops. In Korea we learned the need to operate in smaller detachments. The quartermasters often had to maintain four or five class I and class III supply points, and maybe two II and IV points. It took a lot of detachments to accomplish this. Typically, one officer and a composite squad would run a small distributing point. The ordnance company sent semiper manent detachments to the re giments because of the distances separating them. Here was a place where leadership was necessary on the part of junior officers and NCOs. We often hear of the need for leadership among combat troops. It is no less necessary among service troops. The rations in Korea were out of this world. I had more fresh meat in Korea in a month’s time than I received in three and a half y ears of Pacific service in World War II. We also had fresh vegetables in limited quantities. The food was so good that we got few complaints from commanders except about an occasional shor tage in Worcestershire sauce, catsup, or black pepper! I doubt if we could have maintained this quality of food were we operating on the scale of World War II. Quartermaster Corps 187

15. The Failure of Support Major James W. Spellman, Executive Officer to the Quarter- master, 24th Infantry Division. (Condensed from a statement written on 15 November 1950.)

From the first day they spent in Korea, members of the 24th Division’s quartermaster section have had mixed feelings about quartermaster support. We remember with pride the dif ficult being done immediately, and the impossible taking a little longer. Then we shudder as we recall how often we failed in those hectic days of defeat, victory, and stalemate. We don’t like to remember how many times we have had to turn down requests. “How about the mantle for m y Coleman lantern?” “How about a generator for m y field range?” “How about. . .” stencil paper, GI soap, trousers, tent poles, paper clips, underwear, cigarettes? We seldom had to make excuses for lack of rations or gasoline. But yeast, baking powder, shoestrings, toilet paper, and forks were not available. It has been weeks since many of the small but very important items have been received. Shoes are tied with scraps of cord and kitchens are using toilet soap received from home by mail. I do not doubt that hundreds of soldiers are writing home for items of quartermaster issue because they are not available, or because they come more quickly by mail. After all, our requisitions are often still unfilled after a month of waiting. From the tragic days in Taejon we have sensed a passive indifference to our requirements for indi vidual and unit equipment. In the heat of summer we begged for even salvaged fatigue jackets and trousers to be shipped from Japan to cover our semi-naked soldiers, for salt tablets, and for mess kits to replace those lost b y our troops as they withdrew over the mountains, carrying only their rifles. It was understandable that supply confusion should e xist at f irst. But I do not understand w hy the supply authorities should resist our legitimate requests with criticisms that w e were using too much. Ho w were we using too much? What known yardstick of modern U.S. logistics could be applied to this long series of defeats and withdrawals? From the first telephone request—ignored—for minimum clothing and equipment, through the present requirement of six copies of e very requisition, we have felt the antagonistic, unsympathetic reaction on the part of Eighth Army’s minor quar termaster personnel. They have minutely questioned every item of e ven emergency requirements, and deliberately delayed supplies while they checked and rechecked requests against noncombat-type statistical status reports. There has been an al- 188 Combat Support in Korea most comical questioning of requirements, delving into the microscopic details of why a company, outnumbered 30 to 1, did not e vacuate kitchen equipment under small-arms fire. A directive stated that when damaged equipment was not submitted for exchange, a formal certificate must be submitted giving all details of loss. So long as Pusan remained within truck distance, it was possible to bypass approving authorities and go directl y to the mountains of supplies in the port. Often we obtained supplies in Pusan that were impossible to get through the red-tape maze of proper channels. P ersonnel in charge of warehouse operations frequently begged us to take supplies so they could make room for those being unloaded from ships. After we crossed the Naktong Ri ver, efforts of the ar my quartermaster to supply class II and class IV items to the 24th Di vision were conspicuous by their absence. It is true that great efforts were made to supply class I and class III items, but it only made the indifference to II and IV more apparent. Even now, if a unit is willing to send its tr ucks 230 miles to Ascom City, or 400 miles to Pusan, supplies can be obtained. But the price in broken springs and deadlined trucks is prohibitive. As the drive passed Kaesong, Pyongyang, and points north, franti- cally worded requests to Pusan awaited the opening of a shaky rail system for delivery. On 10 November, the 24th Division had just completed a forty-mile withdrawal of its forward elements. The quartermaster section, then at Sukchon, received a placid notification of a boxcar of class II and class IV supplies—complete with car, engine and train numbers, and hour of departure from Pusan on 9 November—destined for “24th Divi- sion, Waegwan.” Our rear echelons had cleared Waegwan nearly two months earlier. A long time would be required to list the major def iciencies in our supply line. In the prosecution of a war the lack of a generator for a field range is not vital. But the result of poor meals is lowered morale—which is vital. When repeated supply failures occur, when indifference is shown, troops often become discouraged and indifferent. Supply failures at this level cost men their lives. 189

PART VIII Security, Combat, Morale

191

1. Refugee Removal Lt.Col. William Luk, Provost Marshal, 24th Infantry Division. (Interview by Major Robert H. Fisher.)

In the late spring of 1951 the 24th Infantry Division had joined the 7th Infantry Division at Chunchon after a tw enty-mile plunge into enemy territory in a double envelopment. Thousands of Chinese Commu- nist troops and Korean noncombatants were trapped! The day had been heavy with rain and I was wrestling my quarter- ton through the gumbo w hen the commander of the 24th Di vision (Maj.Gen. Blackshear M. Bryan) flagged me down. I was wet and tired as I sloshed through the mud to the general’s jeep. The Old Man was serious. “I want these people cleared from the division area,” he said, point- ing to the struggling humanity moving by, “and I believe your military police can spark the effort.” The refugees were not as numerous as they had been during the big bugout of December 1950; nevertheless, their presence created serious problems. The retreating enemy invariably left line-crossers to foment unrest among Korean noncombatants and to g ain information. It was next to impossible to tell the dif ference between line-crossers and friendly noncombatants. The only answer was to round them all up and remove the whole mass from the battle area. The refugees were also a serious traffic obstacle on our ne wly won but inadequate road net. I knew from previous experience that the presence of noncombatants in a division’s area caused a sharp increase in pilferage, assaults, and other crimes. As General Bryan’s provost marshal I shared his concern. The order “Clear them out!” was flashed to the CP of the 24th Di- vision’s military police company, and the roundup be gan. As I drove along the overtaxed main supply road I saw military policemen accumu- lating groups of white-garbed Koreans at check points, traf fic-control posts, and defiles. Once their motion was halted, these Orientals assumed their normal resting position—a docile squat. They stayed at the tempo-

191 192 Combat Support in Korea rary collecting points until empty suppl y trucks could be halted and used for rapid evacuation. As the day wore on, motorized military police patrols directed an increasing number of persons into the temporary collecting points, and the road leading to the division’s refugee collecting point, twenty miles to the rear, filled with trucks. At the division’s refugee collecting point I saw our civil assistance officer (Colonel Hanson) busily supervising the screening of the refugees. Those who were in obvious need were given treatment by Korean medical personnel. The Korean National Police maintained order and K orean laborers were preparing steaming kettles of rice so that refugees could be fed before further evacuation. As I retraced my route toward the main line of resistance, I saw all the military policemen who could be spared from other duties f anning out into villages along the road to evacuate those Koreans who were not on the move but whose presence in a house made it a likely refuge for the line-crosser. It was during this phase that the big roundup slo wed its pace. The removal of thousands of reluctant refugees and noncombatants from their villages and farms in the division’s two hundred square miles of mountainous terrain was a task that could not be perfor med overnight, nor was it a job that could be done b y the military police alone. The commander of the 24th MP Company (Major Carl Clark) reported that his men had just scratched the surf ace, and he estimated that e ven an around-the-clock operation would keep his company busy for weeks. As I looked over Clark’s shoulder at the two gaunt refugees in the back seat of his jeep, I knew that everyone was in on the act, although this operation was just one of our many jobs. We needed help. In my report at the briefing next morning, I told of our progress and asked for additional help. Our G2 (Colonel Cates) and Colonel Hanson, who had come up from his collecting point, v olunteered their support. Messages were relayed to all division units, and the big roundup moved into high gear. Infantry units on the MLR took into custody all refugees in their area and notified the military police. Artillerymen engaged in surveying gun positions sighted refugees in their transits and sent parties to round them up. Trucks from the MP compan y, augmented by empty supply trucks from units of the division, moved rapidly to evacuate the refugees from combat units to collecting points. Men of the 24th Reconnaissance Company, although tired from their recent combat mission, screened remote mountain villages and v alleys, adding their tak e to the steadil y mounting stream. As the days passed, the combined efforts of all units of the division turned the tide, and the flo w of refugees w as reduced to a trickle. Finally, the number of refugees sighted and tak en into custody became Security, Combat, Morale 193 so small that military police handled the chore. However, it was a constant duty. Military police motor patrols and MP of ficers inspecting traffic posts were often seen to dismount to investigate signs of life observed near the MSR. Usually a refugee or a Chinese soldier who had been hiding since our junction with the 7th Division was flushed out. More than a month elapsed from the time General Br yan gave his clear-them-out order until w e were able to claim an almost complete vacuum between the front line and division rear. Any line-crosser would now have to run a 37-mile gauntlet. To insure that control of refugees was maintained, military policemen took frequent observation flights in helicopters and other light aircraft. When smoke was seen rising from a chimney or clothing observed hanging on a line, MP g round patrols were dispatched to in vestigate. The investigations would frequently turn up some strange doings. One liquor salesman’s thriving business in native spirits, two miles behind the MLR, was brought to a halt. And in another raid a busy Korean bordello within walking distance of the front line was put out of business. By such vigilance the noncombatant v acuum was maintained. The control guaranteed real security to the division from line-crossers, crime, and impeding traffic. Even in this seemingl y simple task, teamw ork helped to spell success in combat.

2. Ordnance Company Under Attack Lt. Edgar E. Dunlap, Lt. William E. Peter, Sgt. Claude H. Lusk, Sgt. M. J. Thomasson, Sgt. Thomas E. Griffin, Sgt. George A. Batson, Sgt. Eugene F. McCracken, Cpl. Elio Battaglia. (Inter- views by Capt. Edward C. Williamson, 4th Historical Detach- ment.)

The 38th Ordnance Medium Maintenance Company came to Korea in July 1950. Its mission was to take the ordnance overflow from the 2d Infantry Division. On 19 September 1950 the company was in the rice paddies alongside the Chongdo River, a half mile south of the small, mud-hut village of Songso-dong. The main supply road from Chongdo to Changnyong ran by the company’s position. Earlier in the summer there had been some fighting in this area. How- ever, the village was still in good condition. The war was at a standstill on 19 September. As a result of recent rain, the Chongdo River now contained some water, and the men of the compan y built a dam on the stream so they could bathe. 194 Combat Support in Korea An experienced company commander (Capt. Francis P. Smith) had been replaced a week before by Lt. Chris Beaber. Smith had spent nineteen months in Korea before it was overrun by the Communists. He had not allowed Korean civilians into his company area because he thought most Koreans would steal and because he was fearful of guerrilla attacks. However, the attitude of the villagers of Songso-dong was friendly, and they sold the soldiers pigs and chickens. On the afternoon of the 19th it w as planned to move the company to a new location. The men loaded their tr ucks, policed the area, and threw all their trash into the foxholes. At the last minute the move was postponed, however, since an artillery battalion and a tank battalion had beaten the ordnance company to its new location. While camp was being broken some 30 adult Koreans and 60 to 70 children gathered on the rice-paddy dik es near the river. Normally the guards would have ordered the civilians away, but in the company’s preoccupation with its move, the Koreans were not disturbed.

When it became apparent that the compan y would not move that day, preparations were made to settle down until a new reconnaissance could be made. The trucks were partially unloaded and the camp routine reestablished. No one took the precaution of cleaning out the foxholes or remounting the caliber .30 machine guns. After unloading, three ser geants went down to the compan y pool Security, Combat, Morale 195 to bathe. They noticed a Korean civilian who just sat on the bank and scowled at them. Sgt. Burt Davis told the others: “I had a r un-in with two Koreans on the dike an hour ago. I told them to shove off and they talked back. This made me mad , but I thought that if I har med them I’d get into trouble.” All the men agreed that these actions by the Koreans were unusual. The 135 officers and men of the 38th w ere armed with 7 tr uck- mounted, caliber .50 machine guns, 3 caliber .30 machine guns, 3 submachine guns, 3 bazookas, 45 carbines, and 76 pistols.The company’s alert plan called for sounding the truck sirens in case of emergency. The men were to take their posts by sections. On the south and east sides would be headquarters, supply, service, and recovery sections. These 53 men were armed mostly with pistols. The carbines were primarily in the au- tomotive section (48 men), and this section w as responsible for the north and west sides of camp. That evening a camp guard, consisting of 4 stationary and 2 roving sentries, was formed. The 800-yard rectangular company perimeter had a guard at each comer. Darkness fell at 2000 and it looked like rain. The company did not have electric lights, and the men customarily turned in early. About two thirds of the company slept in lean-tos, the remainder in the trucks. A sergeant returned from a routine trip at 0030, dro ve into the bivouac area, and halted briefly with his jeep lights on.At 0100 the guard was changed. Along the main supply road there was an unusual quiet, as the South Korean National Police did not relay their usual messages along their chain of grass-hut posts. Only the sound of a howling dog disturbed the quiet of the night. Shortly before 0200, a party of 35 or 40 guerrillas reached the rice paddies and began crawling toward the ordnance compan y. Unnoticed by the two guards stationed to the south of the compan y, they quietly reached the four-foot bank which bounded the company area. First real- ization of the attack came with the thud of grenades falling in the company area. It seemed to the compan y’s men that guns w ere firing all over the place. Bullets hit the tr ucks and rocks and ricocheted throughout the area. Men tumbled out of their trucks and lean-tos to find the guerrillas already on top of the south bank and some mo ving into the compan y position. The too guards w ere forced from their positions along the south bank, but for tunately were able to withdraw without being hit. The enemy action was planned in detail and skillfully executed. The guerrillas centered their attack on the company’s command post and the previous location of the gasoline truck. Because of the expected move, 196 Combat Support in Korea the 750-gallon gasoline truck and other POL supplies had been shifted closer to the MSR. A thermite grenade thrown into the old POL area thus did no damage. A grenade or a tracer hit one tr uck and set it af ire. This brightly illuminated the company area, and the men had neither cover nor holes in which to hide. The two trucks nearest the b laze caught f ire, but were driven away while the fires were extinguished by Sergeant Ellis and Sgt. Paul Easlom. A machine-shop truck burned fiercely after a grenade was dropped into its gas tank. Making the best of an extremely bad situation, many of the men cra wled under their tr ucks while others dispersed themselves behind the river dike to the north of the company position. A light tank (M 24) was inside the compa ny perimeter for repairs, and was combat-loaded when the attack occurred. It could fire from its fixed position. The crew crawled into the tank and remained b uttoned up without taking any part in the engagement. Few of the ordnance company’s men fired back at the enemy. Some were so poorly situated they could not f ire without endangering their comrades. Some were scared. Others just didn’t think of the importance of defending themselves. The entire company might have been overrun had not Sgt. Eugene McCracken taken a hand. McCracken, dressed only in underwear, was under his wrecker. He helped Lt. Henry J. Moore, who was wounded, and then began to look around. The attack had now been under way for about five minutes, and McCracken suddenly realized that all the fire was incoming. He jumped on his wrecker and attempted to f ire the caliber .50 machine gun mounted on it. The gun wouldn’t fire. McCracken could see ten or twelve guerrillas running up and down the bank throwing grenades while three others sat on the bank behind his wrecker and fired small arms. Finally he discovered that the headspace of the machine-gun bar rel had not been cor rectly adjusted, and he re- adjusted it. The gun worked perfectly and he f ired a burst at the three enemy on the bank. These three disappeared and McCracken continued to search the area with fire. Lieutenant Beaber came to the wrecker and shouted, “Can you see any more?” Just then the guerrillas cut loose with another burst of small-arms fire. It missed McCracken but damaged his wrecker. One bullet hit just in front of him, and he let loose some choice profanity. Several men under the wrecker thought he had been wounded, and one shouted, “Mac, are you hit?” “No,” he replied, “but they’re sure trying!” Another man who fired at the enemy was PFC Daniel LeGaspi, who used his caliber .25 pistol. LeGaspi was wounded during the action by an enemy grenade. Sgt. Guy W. Miller managed to set a second caliber .50 machine gun into action, but it jammed after only a few rounds. Security, Combat, Morale 197 The attack subsided after f ifteen minutes. A lull followed during which the company moved into a close perimeter defense and section leaders organized their areas. But no more automatic weapons were put in order. McCracken put another box of ammunition (250 rounds) on his gun and then climbed down to wrap up in a blanket for a few minutes. After five minutes the men of the compan y heard a w histle blow. Everyone hoped this was a signal to withdraw, but instead it proved to be the beginning of a second assault. Twelve to fifteen guerrillas charged down the bank f iring small arms and throwing grenades. Eight to ten grenades exploded in the company area, one six feet from McCracken’s wrecker. He again opened with his machine gun and fired a second box of ammunition. His gun suddenl y stopped f iring and he thought it had jammed. Checking it, he look ed in the ammunition bo x to f ind it was empty. He put a fresh bo x on the gun, reloaded , and continued f iring, spraying up and down the area. About ten minutes after the second assault started, the enemy firing suddenly ceased. It was now close to 0230. The second assault had less intensity than the f irst. Damage was confined mostly to the v ehicles. The guerrillas now began to withdraw, setting up a machine gun to cover their movement. Fire from this machine gun came high into the ordnance company area, and McCracken spotted the gun’s muzzle blast. Turning his weapon on the flash, he silenced the enemy gun. Near the end of the second assault a messenger left the company area to get help. Within a few minutes he retur ned with a patrol from the 622d Military Police Company, stationed in Chongdo. At about 0300 another squad of MPs also ar rived, but did not immediately pursue the enemy since it was still dark and their route of withdrawal was not well defined. In the meantime, the commanding officer of the 622d MP Company made contact with the local police. He learned that the police had been attacked before the assault on the ordnance company. A platoon of 25 to 30 policemen arrived shortly before dawn, went into diamond formation, and headed for an apple orchard where the guerrillas were last seen. Later they sent back for a caliber .50 machine gun, but the guerrillas managed to escape. After dawn the body of a North Korean officer was found, and his papers indicated he w as the leader of the guer rilla force. No other dead were found. Seven guerrillas were believed to have been wounded but evacuated. In the ordnance company, 1 man was killed and 5 wounded. In addi- 1 tion the company lost 3 2- /2-ton trucks (one a machine-shop truck and another containing an L maintenance set), 1 quar ter-ton truck, 3 trailers, and 26 cylinders of oxygen and acetylene. Several vehicles were partially burned or otherwise damaged. 198 Combat Support in Korea The company made its move to another area at 1100 on 20 Septem- ber. The men agreed that in the future no one would sleep in a truck and no one would undress on going to sleep.

3. Attacks Unwelcome Capt. Frank D. Secan, 304th Signal Operation Battalion

One would expect that duty with an isolated radio-relay team would be extremely unpopular. I hear many persons express that idea. I also hear that relay men become careless soldiers and signal operators, that they have little discipline, and that the y allow themselves to go unshaven and dirty. There is no question about isolation, or r ude living conditions. Yet the men of my relay platoon volunteered for such duty. I believe the dis- advantages of this type of service can be largely overcome, and men kept clean, disciplined, and happy, if the right type of NCO is placed in charge of each team. Isolation is a matter of degree. Relay teams are not completely cut off from the world; they have the monitor channel with which they can keep abreast of things. By this channel they can request supplies and call for help in emergency. Still, the isolation calls for much resourcefulness and men have to take care of themselves. This was especially true when we were in northern Korea. In November 1950 I sent a team to estab lish a relay some twenty- five miles from the nearest military unit. The team was commanded by Sergeant First Class Rhodemeyer, an especially self-reliant soldier. Rhode- meyer’s team consisted of 12 to 15 signal men, 10 ROK soldiers, and a Japanese interpreter. In addition to their indi vidual weapons the team had two caliber .30 machine guns and a few grenades. They carefully established a perimeter defense with four or five guard posts, and set trip flares in all paths leading to the position. One night a trip flare went off, and the men knew they were about to be attacked. The raiding party consisted of about f ifty enemy with small arms. The attack was repulsed without casualties or damage to equipment. The next night a second attack w as made. Again Rhode- meyer and his men were ready, and repelled the guerrillas without difficulty. Following the second attack, Sergeant Rhodemeyer left a minimum operating and guard force at the radio site, took 5 signal men, 10 ROKs, and the Japanese interpreter and led his par ty to a nearby village. The Security, Combat, Morale 199 men entered the settlement at gun point, but no resistance was offered. They carefully searched each building and found some sixty weapons and a good deal of ammunition. All this materiel was confiscated and destroyed. No prisoners or hostages were taken, but Rhodemeyer let it be well understood that there had better be no more attacks on the rela y position. The relay station stayed at the same position for ten days after this incident. The entire area remained quiet.

4. Fighting Medics Lt. John Atkins, Lt. Fred O. Blair, Lt. David C. Copell, and Sgt. Vincenzo DiSanto, Medical Compan y, 21st Infantry. (Inter- views by Lt. Martin Blumenson, 3d Historical Detachment.)

The juncture at Sinpori in Ma y 1951, of the 24th Inf antry Division, attacking north from Kapyong, and the 7th Infantry Division, attacking north from Chunchon, bypassed a good many enemy groups. On the 26th of that month the Medical Compan y, 21st Infantry (24th Infantry Division), set up its tents for the night about three hundred yards from the regimental command post and about the same distance from the position of Battery A, 213th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. The camp site w as on the side of a hill in a nar row strip between the place where the steep slope ended and, continuing below it, the terraced rice paddies began. A little southeast of the compan y position a small stream came down through a defile in the hill mass. The company had a permanent guard force of twenty men and, according to its SOP, set up four guard posts. Enem y troops were known to be somewhere close by, so two men were placed on each post. In the early hours of the 27th, some remnants of the enem y moved down along the small stream and through the defile, obviously trying to find their way back to their own lines. At about 0200, the foremost of the enem y soldiers ran into the medical company’s guards along the stream bank. One guard challenged the first Chinese soldier he heard or saw, and got a volley of concussion grenades for his trouble. These explosions awakened the rest of the company. Some were sleeping in tents, some on cots or stretchers, and some in trucks. The first reaction of everyone aboveground was to get down. The second was to get dressed before going out in the mud and rain to meet the enemy. The 5 officers and 63 medics were inadequately armed for combat. In 200 Combat Support in Korea fact, only a few had ammunition. Sgt. Vincenzo DiSanto had a little in the supply truck and put out the f irst 150 rounds to three guards w ho came asking for some. This left him with 250 rounds of carbine ammunition and 8 grenades. DiSanto decided to leave his truck and pass out the ammunition to those who needed it. He found that a f iring line had already been built up.

The ground was such that the onl y cover was behind a retaining wall a few yards west of the company. This put the company’s tents and vehicles right between the firing line and the enemy. In a few minutes DiSanto distributed his small suppl y of ammunition. He k ept one grenade for himself to supplement his pistol. The enemy was not organized. One group moved down the stream bed to the road and set up a roadb lock. Others fanned out and ran into Battery A and the medical company. In the confusion, our troops w ere fearful of hitting one another. As Lt. John Atkins visited a post near the stream he heard the guard challenge, yelling, “Who are you?” “ROK soldiers,” the reply came, so Atkins shouted to the guard , “Hold your fire!” He quickly changed his mind w hen the “ROK soldiers” opened with burp guns. Several enemy soldiers got into the compan y area and thre w grenades. The grenades were ineffective and led only to the throwers’ being killed. The cooks in their white clothing seemed to attract the attention of the enemy more than an yone else. In the shooting, enough rounds were fired by both sides to riddle all the company tents. Security, Combat, Morale 201 The firing line of the medical company was never seriously threatened. The chief effect of its fire seems to have been to deflect the enemy on the medical company’s side of the stream into the line of the re gimental command post on the left of the compan y area. A runner sent over to regiment to report the f ight found that the command post w as fighting too. Sporadic fire continued until daylight. The company reorganized at dawn. A nose count showed 58 Chinese prisoners, and 23 enemy dead in and around the compan y position. Casualties for the compan y were 1 killed and 10 wounded, and the regimental chaplain (Father Francis X. Coppens) was killed in the company area. Company F and G, 5th Inf antry, came on the scene shor tly after daybreak and, accompanied by two self-propelled guns, counterattacked. Several men of the medical company joined this force. A hundred prisoners were soon taken, and the prisoner bag for the 5th Inf antry and the 21st Infantry during that day was 2,900. The medical company continued to w ork as such during the f ire fight. Lt. (j.g.) Edward Green, USNR (the acting re gimental surgeon1) was wounded on the f iring line. He went to the f irst-aid tent with two other wounded. There he treated these men and remained to treat others as they were brought in. An officer-patient, awaiting evacuation, was wounded as he lay on a stretcher. The Chinese were more surprised than the men of the medical company. Intent on escaping encirclement, the y were unable to launch an organized assault. Had the y been able to do so, the y would certainly have overrun the lightly armed troops. Nevertheless, the determination of the medical company to resist the assault helped pre vent the enemy’s escape. By 0830 the compan y was extremely cocky. They were “fighting medics,” and wanted to know “Who in hell says the medics can’t fight?”

5. Task Force Baker Lt.Col. Barton O. Baker, Ordnance Officer, 25th Infantry Di- vision

Every service unit needs to be or ganized so that it can shift rapidly from its service mission to a security mission and, if necessary, to

1 During this period the Army borrowed five hundred Naval Reserve physicians, some of whom saw active service in Korea. Whenever the Navy officer was the senior officer in a unit, he commanded it. 202 Combat Support in Korea a combat mission. To reach this standard, training, discipline, and a good SOP are necessary. To show how effective a service unit can be in a security role, let me tell you about Task Force Baker. In early September 1950, a small Signal Corps VHF detachment was stationed on a hilltop about five miles from the CP of the 25th Infantry Division and about twelve miles behind the infantry line. This party consisted of 5 U.S. soldiers and 3 or 4 South Koreans attached for labor and security. The night of 3 September was rainy and miserable, and all the men in the detachment cra wled into their squad tent. No guard w as posted. At 2200 a party of guerrillas or infiltrators—it was not established which—from the North Korean Army stealthily approached the detachment and killed them all with small arms and grenades. The newspapers condemned this action as an inhumane massacre, but from a professional standpoint it could be called negligence—or even suicide! The next morning (4 September) a CID agent and a repor ter started toward the VHF site. Part way up the hill the y were wounded by grenades. Though injured, these men returned and their wounds were treated at the nearby 8063d MASH in Changwon, at the base of the hill where the action had tak en place. It w as obvious the enemy had not withdrawn from the vicinity of the VHF station. Later that day, I was driving through Changwon and stopped briefly at the MASH. Considerable excitement existed as the result of the two incidents nearby, and the hospital officers pointed out to me that mortar fire was falling on the hillside near the hospital. The enemy obviously was well armed, but what he was firing at I don’ t know. While I was talking, one of the hospital orderlies came in carrying a spent bullet that had just pierced his tent. The location of a hospital, ammunition dump, railroad, and division main supply road made it vital that this area be protected. I phoned the division CP and reported the situation to the commanding general (Maj. Gen. William B. Kean). When General Kean asked for my recommendation, I suggested that since it was already 1700, we could do little now except post security. I told him 150 men should be adequate. The general asked where I proposed to get the men. I replied that I could use the men from my 725th Ordnance Company. He agreed, and said the di vision reconnaissance company would come as soon as it was available, and other units also w ould be dispatched. The force was designated Task Force Baker, and I was to command until the recon company jumped off against the enemy, at which time its commander (Capt. Charles Tor- man) would take over. Immediately after talking to General K ean, I called the ordnance company and told the commander (Capt. Ira Snyder) to bring 3 officers and 150 men to my CP location in Changwon. These men arrived in sixty Security, Combat, Morale 203 minutes, with their indi vidual weapons, three light machine guns, a rocket launcher, and four radios. The group was already divided into three platoons, each with an officer.

I had already planned m y dispositions, and in the ne xt forty-five minutes the platoons were spread in a semicircular perimeter extending from the ammunition dump on the west to a hill east of the hospital.The two most critical points in the area w ere given particular attention. I ordered a machine gun placed to f ire northwest in a draw that was the easiest and most likely approach. At the point where our perimeter crossed an important north-south road I directed that another machine gun be posted, reinforced by the rocket launcher, and that an officer be there at all times. Radio communication from my CP to each of these platoons was established. As these dispositions were being made, I w ent to the hospital and took charge of an engineer platoon that was indifferently providing the close-in security. I informed the engineer lieutenant of the formation of the task force, and directed him to tighten up his defense of the hospital. Next, I visited the ammunition supply point and told the commander of the ammunition compan y of the situation. I directed him to form a security screen e xtending from the left flank of the ordnance position to well beyond his own installation. I also ordered him to place 204 Combat Support in Korea an observation post in a draw on his left flank. After this, I tested communications. During the night an artillery officer called me and said he couldn’t get any ammunition. I asked why. He replied, “They just won’t issue it.” I went to the ASP. As I approached the railroad station that ser ved as a CP, I met no guards but found waiting ammunition tr ucks lined up bumper to bumper. In the CP building I found the commander and all his men.This officer was scared, and his attitude had infected his troops. Although fifty carloads of ammunition sat in the marshaling yards, the commander would not allow any lights in the area and no identif ication or loading could take place. Under my direction the captain sent out the security force I had ordered earlier, and then I started him issuing ammunition. We had to take some risks, since we needed the ammunition. During the night a tank platoon joined our task force. I split this and put half of the tanks in bi vouac near the hospital and the others near the ammunition compan y. Toward morning we were further reinforced by a battalion of ROK marines who arrived from the Chinhae area. We had one incident during the night. I had been infor med that a civil-affairs detachment and some engineers were working north of us, and that they had not returned to the division area. Early in the evening a number of these people w ere challenged, and then came through our roadblock. We assumed all had returned. Later in the night a jeep came along the road but did not halt when challenged. The roadblock officer was a former infantryman, and he fired toward the jeep with his M1 as it came on. As the jeep sped by he grabbed two of the passengers and hauled them out. The jeep soon halted, and we learned he had wounded the local chief of police. I ordered him taken to the hospital, but he died from loss of blood on the way. The following morning the division’s reconnaissance company arrived and, as ag reed, Captain Torman took charge. The division’s ordnance company, the ammunition company, and the engineer detachment held fast while the tanks encircled the enemy and the recon company and the ROK marines moved into the area on foot. At the location of the VHF station the enemy put up strong resistance, using machine guns and mortars. Two American soldiers were killed, but I don’t know the casualties among the ROKs. Seventeen guerrillas were captured or killed, including three women. The rest just melted away. Had the reconnaissance company not arrived when it did, the 725th Ordnance Company would have swept the area. Still, the ordnance company’s importance in providing security for the hospital, the ASP, and the MSR should not be underestimated. It maintained the security until an adequate offensive force arrived. In so doing, the compan y showed Security, Combat, Morale 205 that well-trained technical troops can be of decisive importance during critical periods.

6. Secondary Mission Capt. Robert L. Strouse, 65th Engineer Combat Battalion

During the Naktong perimeter days, the 65th Engineer Com- bat Battalion (25th Infantr y Division) was split among three inf antry regiments. Each regiment operated as a separate combat team. Occa- sionally they used the engineers as infantry—not only in defensive operations, but also in limited objecti ve attacks under taken as par t of the general defense. Near Chungam-ni, Company E, 35th Infantry, failed to take a hilltop after three successive attacks. The crest was an isolated strongpoint in the enemy line, and was strongly defended. On 14 September 1950, the regimental commander ordered Company B, 65th Engineer Battal- ion, to make a suppor ted attack and capture the objecti ve. Only two hours were given the company to prepare for this operation. In addition to weapons organic to a combat engineer company, Com- pany B’s personnel had 2 caliber .30 heavy machine guns and 3 60-mm mortars. These were a special issue to the engineers in view of their frequent commitment as infantry. Company B did not use its mor tars but relied on the infantry for this supporting fire. The attack lasted only thirty minutes, and the objective was taken. The value of the men can be seen in 2 a wards of the Distinguished Service Cross (one posthumous), 3 of the Silv er Star, and 10 of the Bronze Star. Casualties were heavy, the company suffering 14 killed and 21 wounded, including an officer killed and another w ounded. The 3d Platoon suffered particularly, having its platoon ser geant wounded, 2 squad leaders killed and another wounded, and 3 assistant squad leaders wounded. The loss of leaders was particularly felt when the company returned to its primar y engineer role. It meant a complete reor ganization and training of NCO specialists. The 3d Platoon had only 13 men left after the attack, and could not car ry out a platoon task until it recei ved replacements five or six weeks later. 206 Combat Support in Korea

7. Combat Comes Suddenly Lt. Norman R. Rosen, 10th Engineer Combat Battalion

Company D, 10th Engineer Combat Battalion (3d Infantry Di- vision), landed at Wonsan on 20 November 1950—One of the last units of the division to arrive. It spent its first week ashore doing road maintenance work near the port, and was then detached from the 3d Division and ordered to report to X Corps headquarters, at Hamhung. I was in charge of the advance party. On arrival at X Cor ps headquarters on the after noon of the 27th, I was briefed on our future operation b y the executive officer of the 8224th Engineer Construction Group and the S3 of the 185th Engineer Combat Battalion. Company D was attached to the 185th and ordered to proceed immediatel y to Hagar u-ri at the base of Changjin Reservoir. There our mission was to build a forward command post for X Corps. I was given the location of the proposed CP and told that a platoon of the 4th Signal Battalion w as already on the g round to install communications. Nothing was mentioned in the brief ing about the tactical situation, so I raised the question. “Everything is perfectly secure,” the executive officer replied. “I was up there yesterday in my jeep. The marines drive up and down the roads with their headlights on.” The company arrived at Hamhung b y motor convoy at 1500. The men had all their equipment except the bulldozer. I passed on the information I had recei ved to the compan y commander (Capt. Philip A. Kulbes), we refueled our vehicles, and started off on the last fifty miles of our trip. At Sangtong-ni the convoy was delayed six hours by traffic control on a one-way mountain pass. While we sat along the road we listened to a battery of Marine ar tillery firing at a target over the first mountain. At that point I began to wonder how secure things really were. At 0200 we arrived at our bivouac location south of Hagaru-ri. We knew no more of our situation than w e had gotten in Hamhung, so w e posted security and bedded down. To us the most pressing problem was the weather. Company D had been in Korea only a week and was not acclimated. In one day’s drive of 150 miles we had experienced a temperature drop of from 20 de grees above zero to 15 belo w zero. In spite of out hea vy winter clothing we were miserably cold. We’d have been concerned with more than the cold had we known the tactical situation. F ive of our tr ucks with 1 of ficer and 20 men did not ar rive. These vehicles had engine trouble, and be- Security, Combat, Morale 207 fore they could catch up, the road from Hamhung w as closed by the enemy. At 0900 we roused the company. It was a slow start and the cooks rolled out with the rest. While we were waiting for breakfast a Korean civilian came into our area and told us the enemy was on the road behind us. We were impressed by this civilian’s persistence, so we sent a patrol to investigate. At this time a Marine Cor ps officer and his driver walked into our bivouac and informed us they had driven into an enemy roadblock in a defile only a mile south of our bivouac. They had to abandon their vehicle to escape. The driver was slightly wounded and both were wet and cold. Captain Kulbes and I quickly organized a platoon-sized patrol and moved down the road. We met heavy fire from dug-in enemy. Soon we ,received word that the marines w ere sending a force to deal with the enemy, so we returned to our company position. Security was maintained and the men be gan to dig fo xholes. Breakfast was served to small groups. At 1400 the G 2 of the 1st Marine Di vision arrived at our CP. By this time we had finished our holes and were hauling materials for the construction for the cor ps forward CP. This may have seemed a little amusing to the Marine major, as the tactical situation was not what we believed it to be. He told us Hagar u-ri was surrounded; that enemy heavy attacks were expected that night; that the Marine lines w ere thin; and that we should occupy a portion of their perimeter. The position he pointed out on the map was only three hundred yards from where we were, but it was a ridge and almost three hundred feet straight up. We were told there w ere prepared positions to occup y and that w e would tie in on our left with a platoon of the 4th Signal Battalion and would anchor our right on the steep slope w hich overlooked a Marine Corps roadblock. There was never a question raised about postponing our mission, or of coming under Marine control. Still, w e didn’t realize the gravity of our situation and did not move immediately to our new position. Instead, we moved all our v ehicles and equipment to a Marine equipment park in their perimeter. We left our tents and sto ves in position at the bivouac for future use. Company D at this time had 3 officers, 1 warrant officer, and 77 enlisted men. In addition, we had 90 men from KATUSA integrated into the squads. Actually we had more acquaintance with Koreans than most American soldiers had. Before going to Korea our division had been levied several times for replacements. The Koreans had joined us in Japan two months before we embarked. Many of the Americans had arrived only days before we sailed. 208 Combat Support in Korea In addition to indi vidual weapons, our unit had as combat equipment 4 caliber .50 machine guns, 5 caliber .30 machine guns, and 6 3.5-inch rocket launchers. We had no mortars or recoilless weapons. We issued every man three units of f ire (288 rounds per M 1 rifle), two grenades, and all the machine-gun and rocket ammunition we could load on him. The weight of the ammunition and weapons made our march up the steep slope very slow. It was late when we started, and it was dark when we arrived. The ridge on which we organized fell off sharply on all sides except our left. There were lots of holes in the g round, but we found nothing that could be called an organized position. In the dark we could not organize a final protective line, so we did the best we could. The 1st Pla- toon (SFC Leonard J. Best) was on the right and some f ifty feet below the crest. The 2d Platoon (Lt. Geor ge E. Smith) w as in the center . I had the 3d Platoon on the left. Headquar ters Platoon (WO Richard J. Dalke) faced to the rear. Thus our company formed a small perimeter. The company commander (Captain Kulbes) and a Marine Corps liaison officer were in the center of it. Communications were poor. We had our full allowance of radios, but the SCR-536 sets did not w ork in this countr y. Each platoon had its SCR-300, and these happened to be on the same channel as those of the Marine Corps. My own set would not make contact with the compan y commander, but I did ha ve good contact with a Marine of ficer who seemed to know the score. It w asn’t until later that I lear ned the marine was our own liaison officer, and that he occupied the hole next to Captain Kulbes. After I got my squads assigned to their positions I went out on our left flank to tie in with the Signal Cor ps platoon. Instead of f inding Americans, I located a KATUSA labor platoon commanded by an Amer- ican captain and three or four U .S. soldiers. I made ar rangements to coordinate our fire with theirs, and returned. Our company was in position by 2030. At about 2200 we began to hear firing near our position. Thirty minutes later it w as evident that the enemy had cut through the KA TUSA platoon on our left and w as coming at us from both the left and rear (east and nor th). My platoon was the first in our company to become closely engaged, and with our flank in the air it was necessary for us to reface the squads, under fire, some ninety degrees. My men were not trained for this type of maneuver. In this change of front I lost most of my left squad. We held fast during the night, although the 3d Platoon, and the 2d Platoon behind it, had to withdra w 250 yards. The company ended up with all four platoons in a tight knot on the crest of the hill by 0300. The closeness of this position was bad for us when we began to receive heavy concentrations of white phosphorus shells. Security, Combat, Morale 209 The enemy executed a great number of banzai-type attacks on our positions. The American engineers countered this with everything they had. They fired most of their 288 rounds of MI ammunition, most of the machine-gun ammunition, and at times even fired the 3.5-inch rock- ets point-blank at human tar gets. We would stop an attack, things would slow down for a short time, then the enemy leader would blow a whistle and another twenty-five or thirty would rush us. In the morning we learned these were Chinese Communists—our first information that another nation had entered the conflict. While our Americans did well, the KATUSA soldiers did not meas- ure up to the situation. We had difficulty communicating with them, and under the stress of battle they became demoralized. The most in- comprehensible thing about them was that when we ran low on ammunition we asked the KATUSA soldiers if they had any, and they replied negatively. Weeks later we discovered that most of them had not fired their ammunition this night, but continued to carry it. At the beginning of our f ight we had a great deal of dif ficulty with our weapons because they were cold and fired sluggishly. We had gone into action so unexpect- edly it had not occur red to us to clean the oil off our weapons. Several of our men abandoned their own weapons and took those of the enemy dead who littered the ground around their foxholes. The enemy, too, had U.S. weapons—mostly Thompson submachine guns and carbines. During the night our Marine Corps liaison officer was killed, but not before he radioed division headquarters of the seriousness of our situation. We were ordered to hold the position at all costs. No help w as at hand and it was almost dawn before a composite force of a hundred Marine Corps rear-echelon personnel reached our position. At 0900 we received an air strike to our immediate front, and it gave us a great deal of help. At about noon of the 29th w e were relieved from our position on the ridge and moved to another sector of the perimeter. Our losses for the night were almost 50- per cent of our total force. Casualties among Americans were 2 officers slightly wounded, 23 men wounded, 10 men killed, 9 missing. Among the KATUSA personnel, 50 210 Combat Support in Korea were killed, wounded, or missing. Our losses were more serious, considering the key personnel lost to the compan y. The killed included the supply sergeant, two cooks, and two radio men. The wounded included the first sergeant, a platoon ser geant, an assistant platoon ser geant, a radio operator, and two cooks. The missing included a platoon sergeant and two squad leaders. The marines tended to be critical of our company for its operations of the night—in spite of our holding the position. They estimated that we had been hit by an enemy battalion of 1,000, and w e counted more than 400 bodies in front of our positions when daylight came. No account was taken of our ine xperience, or that w e were thrust into a combat role suddenly-without orientation or support. Months passed before the marines gave us recognition for even having been in their perimeter.

8. Efficiency Through Morale Lt.Col. John E. Harbert, 314th Ordnance Ammunition Group

All battalion and company commanders of the 314th Ordnance Ammunition Group had a g reat problem of morale. A majority of the ammunition supply points were located within the di vision zones, manned primarily by troops who arrived in Korea poorly trained and jittery. Most of the ammunition personnel w ere selected from castoffs of units in Japan. The courts-martial and disciplinary rates were high. The morale situation w as further complicated by the rotation and recognition systems, which placed emphasis on unit assignment and not on geographic location, service, or hazard. Thus, service and supply personnel in a combat division were often located a hundred miles behind our ASPs; yet they received twice as man y rotation points. Di vision service troops usually got more rest and had other advantages. I felt that morale w as the key to getting ammunition forw ard. I believed and proved that men who feel their work is important will produce under any conditions. When I took command in mid-1951, I began working on morale from three directions. First, I demanded the highest standards of soldiering. Colors were brought into the f ield. Retreat for mations were held weekly, formal security guard mounts practiced , cleanliness and neat- ness maintained at garrison level, and military courtesy required. I was nicknamed “Hard John” for m y policies and, in fact, I encouraged the nickname. However, the men loved the soldiering and responded favor- ably. The neat clothing, proper uniform, and ceremonies gave the men a pride in themselves and in their units. The proof is in the result: 158,000 Security, Combat, Morale 211 tons of ammunition delivered to the front in 60 days. This is a peak never before reached by any like group. My second principle w as to keep the men infor med. The 314th Group developed a daily bulletin which was designed to appeal to the men. It told the histor y, tradition, and accomplishments of the Ord- nance Corps. It also told in personal terms what their work was accomplishing in Eighth Army, and it stressed the slo gan: “It is the piece of ordnance that kills the enem y.” I had enlisted personnel from distant ASPs brought regularly to group headquarters for a three-day rest—plus a briefing on “the big picture” and the way their unit was helping. The third approach was through recognition and reward. It is very well to recognize the combat soldier for his contribution, b ut this does not mean that recognition should be withheld from service troops. Divi- sional service troops share their division’s accomplishments. Nondivisional service troops cannot w ear the Indianhead, or say they belong to the Wolfhounds, or the Buffalos. Yet, for all of this, some of the ammunition service units have more dangerous jobs and even draw hazard pay. They disarm bombs and go into disputed ter ritory on demolition w ork. On withdrawals from North Korea during the winter of 1950-51, the ammunition troops of the 314th Group shared the bitter rear-guard action. Often they escaped encirclement by walking over the Korean hills with infantry units. At other times they held positions in the line. To overcome this lack of reco gnition, the 314th made “ Andy Ammo” its official emblem. Andy Ammo is the man who doesn’t question, but humps ammunition da y and night. We plastered pictures of Andy Ammo at every ASP. We used his f igure for a road mark er, and ,many of our ASPs were called Andy Ammo by their “customers.” A song was written about Andy, and our men sang it. Andy Ammo was a going tradition before I joined the 314th, but I encouraged his fame. He is now a legend and an inspiration to ammunition service troops who display the will to serve beyond the call of duty. Recognition of our men on the rotation policy came partially as the result of a letter I wrote to the commanding general of Eighth Army. We f inally received rotation points equal to those given divisional personnel when we operated in a division’s zone. This made a favorable impression on the men. It was well deserved. I gave recognition to individuals who worked hard, regardless of race. I recommended for promotion to lieutenant colonel a Negro officer who was one of my best field-grade officers. I brought Negro officers and men into the group headquarters on a merit basis. Each man was judged on his ability—an important consideration when more than 90 per cent of my troops were Negroes. I remained with the 314th Ordnance Group onl y four months but I proved again that leadership is as important in ordnance units as it is in 212 Combat Support in Korea the infantry. The techniques are the same, yet they are often more difficult to apply when your men are spread over greater distances. Leader- ship and morale, efficiency and production, soldiering and recognition— all are tied together. They should never be overlooked in a service unit. These principles payoff in victory. 213

PART IX Short Bits

215

1 Unification Michael Slauta, Special Observer for The Quartermaster Gen- eral. (From a speech, 16 November 1950.)

On the working level in the combat zone there are no unification problems. If two units from different services are together in an area for a time, you soon find they are wearing the same uniform—the uniform that was available in quantity suf ficient to supply all. That goes for food and all other supplies. Eventually there will be standardization for all items and all forces in Korea, with perhaps the exception of the rum ration which the British demand.

2. How to Get Lit Up Lt.Col. Olin T. Hinkey, Finance Officer, 3d Infantry Division

I consider that light and power were my major problem in Ko- rea. It was solved by the Army custom of swapping some beer and whis- key to an engineer unit for a surplus generator. Repairs were made on the same basis. Without that generator nor mal operations could not ha ve been maintained.

3. Speedy Refueling Capt. Douglas O. Kennedy, 425th Traffic Regulating Group. (Interview by Capt. B. C. Mossman, 6th Historical Detach- ment.)

On 22 March 1951 the 425th Traffic Regulating Group was directed to handle a refueling and re gulating point for elements of the 216 Combat Support in Korea 187th Airborne RCT moving north by land. To handle the refueling, we placed signs to indicate the inter val between trucks when they halted. Five-gallon gas cans were stored at intervals alongside the road and an entire serial of fifteen trucks could be refueled at once. Each serial was under way within f ive minutes. In thir teen hours f ive hundred trucks were refueled.

4. What’s the Score? Capt. George R. Spreng, Korean Military Advisory Group

Korean engineers were the finest of the ROK troops. They had higher educational standards than the Army in general, and the selection was careful. Almost all of the enlisted and NCO personnel had some formal education. Like the American soldier, they asked many questions and worked best when they were told the e xact situation. They needed a great deal of supervision, but they did well when given good leadership.

5. Loading in Flight Capt. Homer W. Johnston, 8192d Helicopter Unit. (Interview by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Historical Detachment.)

On 14 August 1951 Capt. Homer W. Johnston, 8192d Heli- copter Unit, received a message to evacuate two wounded men from the high ground east of the Punchbo wl. It took him tw enty minutes to fly from the 8224th Mobile Army Surgical Hospital to the F rench sector. As he circled the designated landing area, Captain Johnston noted that the area was small and slanted. He hovered down to test it. The landing area was a pronounced slope that would cause the helicopter either to slip do wn the hill or topple o ver. To keep the copter upright, Captain Johnson kept the power on and tipped the craft slightly toward the crest. He w as actually semi-flying while the patients w ere strapped on the carrying platforms. As soon as the wounded men were ready, Johnston raised the helicopter vertically, scraping the right bunk er as he did so. He dropped Short Bits 217 down the reverse slope until his craft reached the necessar y climbing speed. Then he returned to the hospital.

6. VHF Ship to Shore Lt. Robert T. O’Brien, 7th Signal Company

When the 7th Infantry Division’s turn came to be evacuated from the Hungnam area, we began to set up special communications to expedite the movement. From others we learned that we could use AN/TRC-3 (very high frequency) radio sets for ship-to-shore communication. On the ship that was to carry the division’s CP we set up an AN/TRC-3, but instead of using the directional antenna we substituted a whip antenna. This was necessary to keep our antennas aligned as the ship shifted with wind and tide. The expedient could only have worked over short distances, but it was satisfactory here.

7. Rescuing Wounded by Tank Army Field Forces Training Bulletin No. 8, 16 November 1951

An instance has been repor ted of an inf antryman being wounded and subsequently killed because he was unaware he could be pulled to safety through the escape hatch of a tank. He w as lying wounded in the road, and efforts of the medics to get to him w ere ineffective. A tank commander mo ved his tank forw ard to straddle the man and get him into the tank. The wounded man misunderstood the intent of the commander, fearing he was to be run over, and kept crawling ahead of the tank. The enemy finally noticed the movement of the wounded man, and killed him. A set of signals or prear ranged plans worked out between infantry and tank-platoon leaders and passed down to all troops may save lives in the future.

8. Time for Reflection Lt.Col. John E. Harbert, 314th Ordnance Ammunition Group

The ordnance officer charged with getting ammunition for - ward has great problems of time, space, communication, and transporta- 218 Combat Support in Korea tion. As commander of the 314th Ordnance Ammunition Group, I had over ten thousand square miles of K orea to cover in inspecting operations and troops. My units w orked both laterally and vertically along the entire front of Eighth Army. One must realize that ar my ammunition troops pro vide the only ammunition supply services to the combat trains of the using units. Un- like any other type of supply service, there is no counterpart organic to a corps or a division. This led to many problems involving command control and operational proficiency. I tried many times to ha ve a light plane assigned to me, but this was never allowed by higher headquarters. I spent well over half my time traveling from ammunition suppl y point to ammunition suppl y point over Korea’s rough roads. Traveling like this had one value, however. I had plenty of time’ in which to contemplate my problems and to make decisions.

9. 5-in-1 Mule Ration Sgt. David J. Fox, Radio and Message Center Company, 101st Signal Operation Battalion. (Inter view by Capt. Pierce W. Briscoe, 2d Historical Detachment.)

The Chinese Communists used pack mules in their 1951 spring offensive. When the United Nations forces counterattack ed, many of these mules were abandoned or escaped. Left to forage on the rice paddies and mountain slopes, they soon became thin and sickly. The Radio Relay Platoon, 101st Signal Operation Battalion, gathered six of these mules for use in packing equipment up the mountains. The mules were fed candy, sugar, and cereal from 5-in-1 rations. After a short time the mules were fattened and resumed their burdensome life.

10. You’ve Got to Follow Through Major Richard I. Crawford, Korean Military Advisory Group

The average ROK officer and soldier had received demolitions training—including how to calculate, prepare, and place char ges. But they had had very little of the theory of defensive demolitions. Before the Communist in vasion, ROK engineers had packaged charges for the demolition of key bridges and roads in a zone forty miles south of the 38th parallel. We had held practice aler ts, moved the Short Bits 219 demolitions to their sites, and prepared each site for demolition with gratifying success. However, we had not impressed the K oreans sufficiently with the impor tance of timely detonation and defense of their newly created obstacles. When combat came, trigger -happy individuals ordered key bridges blown before our vehicles had been cleared; on a few occasions the enemy made a flanking movement with small bands and killed the demolitions squad before the fuze was lighted. In at least six cases the tactical commander ordered that the bridge not be b lown because he wanted to “counterattack o ver that route.” In no case did such a counterattack ensue. F ew, if any, of the obstacles created w ere defended. There was a great tendency for combat troops to fall well behind a blown but undefended obstacle to eat their rice, to sleep, or to regroup. That was fatal.

11. Recaptured American Wire Capt. Rudolph A. Fallon, 5th Cavalry

In October 1950, the 1st Battalion, 5th Ca valry (for which I was communications officer), overran a North Korean signal dump. In it we found about thir ty miles of single-conductor (strand) wire. We were particularly interested in this wire because obviously it was Ameri- can-made W-110. We deduced this from the fact that it was the familiar four-copper, three-steel strands. Though the twisted pair had been sepa- rated and each strand individually rolled, the spiral marks where another strand had gone around and around were still plainly visible. Each roll of wire was wrapped in burlap and marked in what appeared to be Russian. We were short of wire at this time, so we picked up the abandoned rolls on DR-4s and -5s. We often used the captured wire by rolling out two lines. However, ground return was used successfully by our artillery liaison officer. In one instance north of Kunu-ri, we laid about four hundred yards of single-strand wire along a railroad, using the rail for the return.

12. Intrenching Tools Lt.Col. Arnold C. Gilliam, Quartermaster, 2d Infantry Division

During the winter of 1950-51, intrenching tools were discarded by combat units while they were actually engaged with the enemy. The 220 Combat Support in Korea reason was that the ground was frozen and the tools could not be used. The quartermaster of the 2d Inf antry Division did not become aware that these tools had been abandoned until the spring of 1951. when the ground began to thaw. Commanders then wanted replacement intrenching tools as rapidly as possible. But the number of replacement requests on this item was too great for the depot at Pusan to fill. It was necessary to airlift them from japan. Unfortunately, this used air space vitally needed for gasoline and ammunition.

13. Bridge Assembly on Land Major Carl A. Pollock, Liaison Officer to the Turkish Brigade

On the day before an assault crossing, we supplied the Turks with 340 feet of M38 infantry foot-bridging and instructions for its assembly. The crossing site was under heavy artillery and mortar fire. The Turkish engineer commander decided it would cost many lives to have his men work in the open, so he had the bridge assembled behind a small crest—150 yards from the river’s edge. Once the bridge was assembled, several hundred troops pick ed it up and hand-car ried it to the w ater’s edge. During the carry, the bridge broke several times, whereupon everyone lowered it. When it was put back together, all lifted and moved on. The bridge was put into the river at a 35- to 45-degree angle in the same direction as the current. At this angle it did not reach the opposite shore, but the men walked its length and jumped into the w ater to pull on ropes and bring the bridge astride the current. It was a smooth operation, quickly executed.

14. A Dilemma Capt. George W. Spreng, Korean Military Advisory Group

During the offensive into Nor th Korea the ROKs had few trucks with which to supply their divisions. To solve this problem my division commander ordered me to establish a railroad operating section in our engineer battalion. This put me in a command dilemma, for the U.S. authorities had ordered all locomotives and rolling stock returned to Hamhung. I was caught between the ROK decision to use the trains and the U.S. decision to move them back. All KMAG advisers were hampered by the U.S. decision “to advise only” and stay away from command. This seemed impossible to me, and Short Bits 221 by agreement with the South K oreans I actually ordered people to carry out tasks. But now I was faced with a direct order b y the U.S. officials to countermand the order of an ROK division commander. I took refuge in my advisory capacity and suggested that these orders be sent through channels. I don’t know that this was done. We did release a few trains for appearances’ sake, but we kept eight complete trains for ourselves.

15. Integration Lt.Col. Homer P. Harris, Quartermaster, 2d Infantry Division

I especially want to note that the 15th Quar termaster Com- pany was integrated and that at least a third of m y men were Negroes. I believe these were my best men. They held more than their share of the NCO ratings. They did skilled jobs. They knew they were getting a break on rotation points and w ere not being discriminated ag ainst in any way. They were good soldiers.

16. Broken Springs Major John C. Bell, 13th Engineer Combat Battalion

There were times when we had as many as 15 of our 81 trucks deadlined—all for broken front springs. The breakage was so far from the normal expectancy that Ordnance w as rarely able to supply these springs. Most frequently the break occur red in one of the tw o bottom (long) leaves. The mechanics soon became adept at rebuilding front springs by throwing out a bad leaf and combining the rest of this spring with parts of another to make one good spring. If the breakage had been evenly distributed among the leaves, there would have been little trouble.

17. Language Problems Capt. Robert F. Doolin, Korean Military Advisory Group

A frequent failing in ROK commanders was their refusal to use a common language. All Korean officers could speak both Korean and Japa- 222 Combat Support in Korea nese. But the use of Chinese w as the sign of a good education. Conse- quently, an officer who understood Chinese would write his messages in that language and have them translated so they could be understood by the radio operators. At the other end the message w as again rendered into Chinese before it was delivered.

18. Fire in the Hotel Lt. William A. Champion, Lt. Charles H. Crossley, Lt. Weldon M. Gamel, and Lt. James E. Hunter , 2d Engineer Combat Battalion. (From interviews by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Histori- cal Detachment.)

Company C, 2d Engineer Combat Battalion, sent the remainder of its demolition men to work on a pass in an access road.They progressed through the rock y sections at about a hundred feet a da y, using a daily average of two thousand pounds of explosives. Every type of explosive charge available to the Corps of Engineers was used. Each time the demolition men f inished blasting, from six to tw enty rounds of enemy 82-mm mortar or 76-mm ar tillery fire hit the blasting site. For several days the men w ere able to blast only twice daily. The charges were placed in the morning with five- to ten-minute fuzes. As the men moved off the pass for lunch, they detonated the explosives. During the afternoon they cleared the debris and set more char ges. As they withdrew for the night the y blasted again. In this w ay they were able to avoid the enemy fire and proceed with their work.

19. Combat Boots Lt.Col. Arnold C. Gilliam, Quartermaster, 2d Infantry Division

Some time before the Korean action, the new russet boot was adopted to replace the combat boot. As stocks of the combat boot in any size became e xhausted, substitution of the ne w type boot w as authorized. News travels fast. Soon men requested sizes that did not fit so they would be equipped with the r usset boot. The quartermaster of Eighth Army (Col. James M. Lamont) stated that, although he had e xceeded the normal replacement factor by 269 per cent, the demand for boots continued high. It w as apparent that man y men had thro wn away their combat boots in order to get the new type. Short Bits 223 At an inspection of one re giment it was found that more than half the men equipped with the r usset boot were wearing the wrong size. It was necessary to airlift foot-measuring devices so that commanders could be sure their men were wearing the proper footwear.

20. Need for Trained Personnel Michael Slauta, Special Observer for The Quartermaster Gen- eral. (From a speech, 16 November 1950.)

Handling supplies at the Pusan port was quite difficult at the start. It wasn’t because we didn’t know how to handle supplies; the personnel to handle them in quantity were not there. The quartermaster section operated with a staff of six officers and a platoon of men. We had to depend on indigenous labor. The piers were soon piled high with unsegregated cargo. Loose cans filled a large warehouse. The problem did not diminish until service troops arrived.

21. Division Airdrop Command Report, 23d Infantry, October 1951

Airdrops by liaison aircraft are successful only when the pilot knows where the target is located and dares to tak e his plane close enough and low enough to insure that most of the car go will reach its destination. The airdrops in suppor t of the 23d RCT consisted mainl y of rations, water, fruit juices, and medical supplies (especiall y blood plasma). These drops were excellent, and there was at least 75 per cent recovery.

22. Who Wants to Serve in the Rear? WO John Kinnaman, Jr., Finance Section, 1st Cavalry Division

A major problem in Korea was the lack of trained replacements. During the first six months we received only one trained f inance man. Our main source of replacements were re-profiled front-line men, sole surviving sons, and men in similar categories. At the same time, a check 224 Combat Support in Korea of the military pay records indicated that several finance school gradu- ates were serving in front-line units as riflemen. After much discussion with Gland unit personnel officers, we finally managed to get some of these men out of the front line and into our section. We often operated by candle light in bombed-out b uildings that had little heat. Our w orkday started immediately after breakf ast and often extended to midnight. Because of the continuous mo ving of the bulky equipment, our men had to assume the triple role of finance clerks, stevedores, and guards. As a result of these working conditions, we received many requests for transfers to combat units. We had to den y them for the good of the service.

23. The Sagging Bridge Lt. William A. Champion, Lt. Charles H. Crossley, Lt. Weldon M. Gamel, and Lt. James E. Hunter, 2d Engineer Combat Bat- talion. (From interviews by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Historical Detachment. )

About 12 August 1951, Company C, 2d Engineer Combat Battalion, began constructing a Bailey bridge near the site of a washed- out wooden bridge. The need for the bridge w as so g reat that it w as begun before enough parts had been assembled for it. It was necessary to launch the 80-foot span single-single (one panel wide and one panel high on each side of the treadw ay) instead of a doub le-single. After the single-single was across, the bridge sagged, and had to be made double- single. To compensate for the sag in the alignment of the pins of the outside panels, a D7 bulldozer was driven into the middle of the stream and jacks were placed on its A-frame. By jacking one side at a time, the bridge was brought into alignment. It took three da ys and two nights to construct the bridge.

24. Carelessness is Expensive Lt.Col. Clifford E. Roberts, Signal Officer, 7th Infantry Divi- sion

Service detachments of the 7th Inf antry Division moved together from Seoul to Inchon in October 1950. A convoy moving along the mountainous route in central South K orea was ambushed by the Short Bits 225 enemy at 0200 one mor ning in a def ile. The lead vehicle was hit and blocked the road. The signal detachment had an SCR-193 radio, mounted in a jeep, which could be used to request assistance for the con voy. However, when an attempt was made to put the set on the air , the antenna would not load properly. For hours, the men made frantic attempts in the dark to get the transmitter into operation, but with no success. When daylight came, it was found that the antenna terminal on the set was broken. Investigation revealed two important facts. First, the radio was a spare set and had not been operated recentl y. Second, the faulty antenna condition had existed before this operation. Five hours and several lives were lost because of this carelessness.

25. Patrol Evacuation Capt. Arne H. Eliasson, 8192d Helicopter Unit. (Interview by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Historical Detachment.)

On 18 August 1951 the 23d Infantr y (2d Infantry Division) had a platoon-sized patrol in the Punchbowl area. Mortar fire struck the patrol and a number of men were killed and others wounded. The patrol immediately withdrew with its wounded and dead and notified the battalion surgeon. He called for tw o helicopters to aid in the e vacuation. The Punchbowl is a f airly level valley surrounded on all sides b y mountains. Without helicopters it would be necessary to carry the casualties up the hills before they could be evacuated. Twenty minutes after the call, Capt. Arne H. Eliasson was over the area. The patrol was withdrawing in single file. The men didn’t have time to place the re gular landing mark, b ut they had placed a panel in a nearby rice paddy. Two wounded men had just been strapped to the stretcher platforms when several 60-mm mor tar rounds landed f ifty yards away. The infantry immediately scattered and Captain Eliasson fle w the craft away. Later that day six calls came from the same area, and twelve men from the patrol were evacuated. 226 Combat Support in Korea

26. Problems of Sizing Michael Slauta, Special Observer for The Quartermaster General. (From a speech, 16 November 1950.)

We had a considerable problem in issuing clothing and shoes to the South Koreans integrated into our ranks. They are very small people, standing only 64 or 65 inches, and are quite slender . Fortunately, they don’t pay as much attention to size as w e do. So long as an item w as wearable, they would accept it and then trim it down. Footwear, however, was another problem. During the summer and 1 fall of 1950 we were issuing all our footwear smaller than 6- /2 to ROK soldiers. There were some complaints on the fitting, so we ran a survey to see where we were going wrong. We found that 71 per cent of the ROKs have supplementary tariff size feet. The mean size was 6 EE; the 1 1 smallest ran down to 3- / 2 EEEE; and the lar gest to 10- / 2 EEE.

27. Wire Recovery Capt. Robert F. Doolin, Korean Military Advisory Group

The Koreans did not always understand our signal doctrine—or agree with it. Sometimes this made little difference. At other times the results were ludicrous. One ROK peculiarity was the refusal to use drums in the recovery of wire. Instead, a soldier would walk a wire accompanied by a cart. He would coil the wire around his bent arm as one does a rope. After he had as much as he could con veniently carry, he would cut the wire, carefully tie the coil, and place it in the cart. He would then repeat this operation until the entire length of wire w as picked up. When he returned to his unit he would carefully splice the wire and rewind it on a reel. We just couldn’t stop that practice.

28. Supply Guesstimates Lt.Col. Kenneth O. Schellberg, Quartermaster, 7th Infantry Di- vision

We didn’t know what enemy resistance to e xpect at Inchon since this was to be the first offensive against the enemy. I had to reach Short Bits 227 into space for many of my estimates. I loaded rations enough for thirty days. Anticipating that water might be short until we captured Inchon, I included thirty gallons of w ater per man. On pure guess I included burial supplies for five thousand, and three loads of insecticides. The quantity of supplies w e carried may sound excessive in some cases. Actually, it wasn’t. Although the division loaded them, the supplies were not to be unloaded while the battle was in balance. Initially we would have no supply base to tur n to, but I anticipated that man y nondivisional units would call on us for supplies. In this I was correct, for an ROK marine regiment was attached to us south of Seoul. Our supplies, then, constituted the stock for the initial operation, and a beginning stock for 2d Logistical Command which was to come. Actually, the 7th Division did not meet an Eighth Army forward supply point until January 1951.

29. For Want of a Nail Major Carl A. Pollock, Liaison Officer to the Turkish Brigade

The Turks are excellent in improvising when they lack a critical item. I recall one instance where they were building a bridge and did not have enough nails for the job. Their solution was to drill holes and insert wooden pegs. In the United States, hand do weling is used onl y in cabinet work.

30. Infantry Division Port Lt.Col. Arnold C. Gilliam, Quar termaster 2d Infantry Divi- sion

After the 2d Inf antry Division crossed the 38th parallel w e established a supply point at Sariwon. Trucks hauled supplies more than a hundred miles north of Ascom City. The main supply road was a second-rate road used by several other divisions. Because of the pressure, only class I and class III supplies could be moved. At this time I lear ned that we could receive shipments directly from the sea if w e could operate the por t at Haeju. I mo ved to Haeju 228 Combat Support in Korea with Capt. Fred J. Tennant and a small detachment. Using prisoner -of- war labor, we unloaded one LST and several Japanese cargo vessels. Supplies from Haeju were moved north to Sariwon over a narrow- gauge railroad. The smallness of the cars slowed the operation. We could load only 50 drums of gasoline in a car instead of the normal 150. As we were now in enemy territory, we placed two guards in the cab of each locomotive to be sure the Communist engineer mo ved his train to Sariwon. This operation relieved the pressure on the truck route.

31. Roadbound Lt.Col. Ernest W. Chapman, Engineer Section, X Corps

I would say that our over-all concept of operations makes us road bound to such an extent as to be dangerous. For example, we look at a road on a map and decide w e cannot move a force over it. Yet in the next breath we concern ourselves with the possibility that the enem y will use the same road against us—which often happens.

32. Helmets for the 38th Infantry Lt.Col. Arnold C. Gilliam, Quartermaster, 2d Infantry Divi- sion

In January 1951, I made a routine visit to the 38th Infantr y (2d Infantry Division) near Andong. I asked the regimental commander (Col. George B. Peploe) if he had any quartermaster problem. He stated that there was one problem about which he was greatly concerned. Less than two weeks had passed since he had been assured that e very man would be equipped with a steel helmet. Now his S 4 advised him that the regiment needed 350 helmets. During this period the 38th had been engaged only in minor patrol actions. I told Colonel P eploe I could tak e care of his requirements. He thanked me and said that ster n disciplinary action would be taken against any man who, in the future, was caught without a helmet. During the next month I again visited the 38th Inf antry. The regiment had been engaged in heavy combat and there had been heavy losses Short Bits 229 of equipment in several companies. Nevertheless, the shortage of steel helmets was so small that only a few replacements were needed.

33. Camera Patrol Lt. Robert T. O’Brien, 7th Signal Company

The 7th Infantry Division was the only major unit to reach the Yalu River. We realized that we were very much exposed that far north, so we paid par ticular attention to combat intelligence. The civilians provided us with many rumors of enemy units between us and Hagaru-ri. To ignore any of these might ha ve been dangerous, but to check them all by patrol would have been impossible. Instead, the division G2 had our photo section mak e aerial photos of each suspected area and areas where enemy strongpoints might logi- cally develop. These sorties were flown twice daily and the prints delivered to G 2 within two hours. Comparisons gave the division a good indication of what was going on.

34. Security Through a Swap Capt. John M. McGuire, 1st Mobile Army Surgical Hospital

Although medical personnel had not been ar med before our entry into Korea, by the time we left North Korea in late 1950 all our medics were armed with the carbine or the M1 rifle. Some of us thought this was a violation of the Gene va Convention, but we learned later that the Convention does not prohibit the arming of medical troops for the protection of their patients and themselv es. Nurses were the only medical personnel who were not armed. In February 1951, while four miles outside Andong, we felt that the possibility of an ambush was strong because enemy guerrillas were very active in the region. As our hospital was located within several hundred yards of two potential military targets—a main supply road and a railroad tunnel—we figured we were sitting ducks. We felt that our indi vidual weapons did not of fer adequate f ire power to protect us in an attack. Therefore, we exchanged some medic- 230 Combat Support in Korea inal alcohol for ten automatic rifles from a division ordnance company. Needless to say, both units felt each had received the better bargain.

35. Flame-Thrower Tanks Lt.Col. William C. Hammond, Jr., Chemical Officer, I Corps

It has been a hard job to sell the flame thro wer to the armor people, but after the y used it a w hile they became quite enthusiastic. The enemy fears fire. Recently, a tank went into a valley and fired one burst of flame. For a distance of a thousand yards all the enemy ducked down into their holes and stopped firing—including those way up on the sides of hills whom we could not possibly have reached. The psychological factor was tremendous.

36. Pick Your Method Major Carl A. Pollock, Liaison Officer to the Turkish Brigade

The Turks did not al ways use methods that are par t of our doctrine. They had with them American, German, and Soviet field and technical manuals in addition to their own. I gathered that their manuals were pretty much a synthesis of all of these. The Turks certainly were not doctrinaire in their methods.

37. Preparation for Action Lt.Col. Kenneth O. Schellberg, Quartermaster, 7th Infantry Di- vision

As soon as the 7th Infantry Division had closed in the Fuji area, the process of requisitioning equipment and bringing the division to war- time allowances was begun. Unfortunately, there just w eren’t enough supplies in Japan. The occupation divisions had been maintained at reduced strength and only a minimum of field training had been possible. Stock levels in the Far East Command had been related to both strength and losses, so there was little theater reserve of such items as mess kits, barber sets, and stove parts. The outfitting of the f irst three divisions Short Bits 231 for Korea had absorbed that reserve. The barrel was scraped clean before we got to Fuji. When we requisitioned carpenter sets, we first got the box the set comes in; then, from time to time, we received shipments of loose tools. Our requests for mess kits brought us a shipment of mess trays as substitutes.

38. Borrowing a Bridge Lt.Col. James E. Linden, 14th Engineer Combat Battalion

The Kumho River appears as a small stream on a map, but it was wide and def initely unfordable in September 1950. As the attack progressed the 1st Cavalry Division built a 13-ton infantry support bridge across it. For the heavier traffic the division attempted a cause way of sandbags. This washed out as fast as the sandbags were placed. The 24th Infantry Division faced a better prospect for its crossing of the Naktong River, as I Corps had attached to it a class 50 treadway bridge. A small margin of time existed before it was necessary to erect the class 50 bridge over the Naktong, and the 1st Cavalry Division borrowed the structure for its crossing of the Kumho. The bridge over the Kumho River was 300 feet long and took four hours to erect. It car ried critical supplies for tw elve hours, then w as dismantled and returned. So vital was the bridge in the plans of the 24th Division that the assistant division commander personally waited at the bridge to see that it w as dismantled in time to be retur ned to the 24th Division. The tread way bridge was removed at 2300, and the next morning at 0600 the 14th Engineer Combat Battalion opened a fixed-span M2 treadway bridge across the Kumho.

39. Why Pay the Combat Soldier? WO John Kinnaman, Jr., Finance Section, 1st Cavalry Division

It was intended that unit personnel officers screen their units to determine what portion of his pay each soldier desired. It soon became apparent that this w as not being done, ho wever, for tur nbacks often totaled 75 per cent. Man y men had no need or desire for their money. I recommend that personnel in combat units not be paid until their departure from Korea. I suggest a gratuitous issue of ten dollars a month 232 Combat Support in Korea to cover cost of laundry and PX items. This program would cost about two million dollars a month. Since soldiers in the combat zone are given free cigarettes, beer, soft drinks, and candy, I feel that this expense is not out of line with Army policy. Furthermore, the cost will be more than compensated by the savings. Savings and benefits will occur in many ways. Nonpayment would prevent military pay certificates from f alling into enemy hands. The increased use of allotments would reduce the necessity for payment—and finance personnel. Limitation of mone y in the hands of troops w ould reduce the free spending that has been so damaging to the econom y of the Republic of Korea. It is to be noted that the e xchange rate on the ROK won rose from 1,800 to 6,000 to the U .S. dollar in the ele ven months I was in Korea. To a large extent this was due to soldier spending.

40. Wire Cutters Caught The Army Combat Forces Journal, February 1952

A wire “trouble” team usually fixes broken telephone wires. This crew also fixed some Communists. When a recent trouble call was answered, wire men from the 25th Infantry Division in Korea found a break in the line and repaired it. Call- ing back to the s witchboard was fine, but a call forward indicated another broken line. As the men mo ved up the line and w ere about to adv ance over a ridge, they discovered the cause of their brok en lines—eighteen Com- munists busily cutting the wire. A quick call for reinforcements resulted in the capture of the wire spoilers and a return to trouble-free circuits.

41. What Do You Feed a Korean? Lt.Col. Kenneth O. Schellberg, Quartermaster, 7th Infantry Division

Three weeks before the 7th Infantry Division shipped to In- chon, we received an augmentation of 8,600 K oreans. Before they arrived our division commander (Maj.Gen. David G. Barr) asked me, “What do you plan to feed these men?” I countered, “How do you plan to use them?” Short Bits 233 After some consideration he replied that the buddy system w ould probably work best. On that basis I recommended that w e feed the Koreans regular U.S. rations, and make adjustments as we got complaints. I didn’t believe it would be possible to set up a dual ration system within the units.

42. Redesigning a Bridge Capt. Francis S. Obradovich, 185th Engineer Combat Battalion, and Lt. George W. Brazier, Jr., 8224th Engineer Construction Group. (Condensed from interviews by Lt. Bevan R. Alexander, 5th Historical Detachment.)

The bridge over the Soyang River was well under way. The south abutment and the north approach road were complete and for ty- one piles had been dri ven. On 24 April 1951, however, the engineers learned that the enem y offensive would bring a halt to their project. They began to evacuate the engineer equipment. To hide as much of the pro gress on the bridge as possib le, all the unused piling was buried. The south abutment was completely camouflaged to make it appear that the w ork on it had onl y just begun. The piling that had already been dri ven into the river bed was left in place because nothing could be done with it. When the enemy offensive was halted, the UN forces counterattacked and reached the So yang River approximately a month after the engineers had pulled out. The infantry reponed that something had happened to the piles of the bridge. The message was vague. A construction officer flew to the bridge site and found that the Chinese had chopped the piles off at the water level. The Chinese had used the chopped-of f piles to b uild a low bridge about two hundred yards from our bridge site. The camouflaged abutment and the buried pile bents had escaped enem y observation, however, and had not been bothered. But the cut-off piles forced a redesign of our bridge.

43. Infantry Replacements Capt. Fred J. Tennant, 2d Quartermaster Company

The 2d Infantry Division entered Korea on 31 July 1950 and went into action immediatel y. The infantry regiments had high casu- 234 Combat Support in Korea alty rates in their f ighting, and without replacements the infantr y strength became dangerously low. Here we learned that every man has to be a soldier. Division ordered all service units to transfer 10 per cent of their strength to the infantry. Some of our men had pre vious infantry experience, most had not. Often the men w e transferred went into an attack tw o hours after joining the new unit. We gave the infantry good men—the enemy was too close to send out any 8-balls.

44. Eager Beaver Col. Thomas A. Pitcher, Signal Officer, Eighth Army

One of the best cable splicers to work on the Mukden cable was Sergeant Van Atta of the 532d Signal Constr uction Company. Not only was he thoroughly proficient, but he was always anxious to get his job done. He carried his enthusiasm so far that, so long as the cable ran there, it seemed to mak e little difference to him w hether or not w e had captured an area. Equal in zeal to Van Atta were the wire cre ws of the Repub lic of Korea’s Ministry of Communications. They seemed to give allegiance to neither side in the struggle. Their interest and loyalty was to the cable. When it went bad they fixed it—regardless of whose territory it was in. A strong bond de veloped between Van Atta and the K oreans. Once, north of Seoul, Van Atta went ahead of the infantr y into enemy territory to get star ted on the cab le. He was surrounded by Korean civilians and communications men. Suddenly several North Korean soldiers came on the scene and, seeing an American soldier, asked the civilians why an enemy soldier was here. The communications men replied: “He’s a prisoner. We’re using him to repair the cable.” The enemy soldiers moved on.

45. Icebreaker, M1 Condensed from “Expedient River Ice Removal Practice,” by Major Vernon L. Watkins and Lt. George W. Brazier, in En- gineer Lessons Learned in Korea, June 1951.

Along with the rise in the Han River waters came floating ice. Combined, these forces of Nature destro yed all the bridges o ver the Short Bits 235 Han in the X Cor ps zone except for a 300-foot timber str ucture near Chungju. The floating ice varied from small bits to 40-foot sheets, and from 2 to 14 inches thick. It became apparent that the Chungju bridge would also fail if the ice could not pass.Already, clogging ice had raised the upstream water level 42 inches. Demolition crews were unable to dislodge the mounting ice, and men with steel bars, tent poles, and nati ve timbers were too slow. As the river continued to rise, the bridge be gan to fail. In desperation the engineers turned to any expedient, including one that had been discussed earlier and passed o ver. Engineers f ired M1 rifles directly at the jammed ice. Results were gratifying. A single fracture often broke the ice mass and allowed the fragments to flow under the bridge. Throughout the night of 22 F ebruary 1951 and the ne xt morning, squads of riflemen protected the str ucture, but subsequent rises in the river allowed water to flow over the treadway and forced the engineers from the bridge. Unattended, the ice clogged all openings and some of the larger sheets extended over the deck. The bridge failed. Quick thinking and the use of an e xpedient had extended the life of the str ucture twenty-four hours. This was sufficient to per mit the repair of alternate routes.

46. Curtailing the Money Black Market Lt. Donald J. Horan, Finance Office, 2d Logistical Command

The main problem which arose in this rear area was the illegal trafficking in militar y payment certificates between members of the United Nations forces and K orean nationals. Within the means of the finance section we could practically wipe out this b lack market ac- tivity by making exchange readily available without any waiting. We found that two cashiers could adequately handle the sale of won, which amounted to appro ximately thirty thousand dollars a da y, provided they did not ha ve to count the cur rency. Four Korean girls, money counters for the Bank of K orea, were used to count out the Korean currency in five- and ten-dollar stacks. Being more prof icient than U.S. personnel at counting K orean money, their employment speeded up the counting and they proved far more accurate. 236 Combat Support in Korea

47. Temperature Adjustment Michael Slauta, Special Observer for The Quartermaster Gen- eral. (From a speech, 16 November 1950.)

The reaction of troops from tropical countries to w et-cold climate is unfavorable. When the Filipinos arrived in Korea on a Septem- ber night, the temperature was a very comfortable 65 degrees. But the Filipinos felt cold. They were actually “freezing” and, before they moved away from the train, the y had broken into their packs and had blankets draped over their shoulders. Before two days passed we had to issue them winter clothing.

48. Shortage of Spare Parts Lt.Col. William C. Hammond, Jr., Chemical Officer, I Corps

We suffered all through the campaign from a lack of spare parts. I do not mean that the Chemical Cor ps is remiss; I mean that all spare parts are short. Korea is brutal on all types of mechanized equipment. It’s because of rough roads and dust. The dust over here is terrific. It is highly abrasive—just like the dust we encountered at Salerno. The World War II replacement factor should be doubled, or even tripled.

49. Lead-in Wire Sgt. Gene C. DeMont, 2d Medical Battalion

Around 15 September 1950 I was serving as advanced radio operator with the 2d Medical Battalion (2d Infantr y Division) at Yongsan. The infantry was having a rough fight and we had a number of serious casualties in our clearing platoon in need of immediate evacuation. We were rapidly running out of medical supplies. I was operating an old AN/GRC-9 radio with a w hip antenna. I should have been able to get a range of for ty-five miles, even in this rough country. The medical battalion w as at Mir yang—only thirteen Short Bits 237 miles away—and I could not reach them. I tried for an hour without success. While I was trying to get the message through, a radio operator from the 2d Quar termaster Company came along. He look ed at the lead-in wire between the radio and the antenna, and told me the wire was losing a great deal of power from radiation. He suggested I make a lead-in of coaxial cable—and even provided a short piece of it. I made the lead-in and tried calling Miryang. I got them on the first call. Their signal was weak but readable. In turn, they read me strong. I sent my message requesting supplies and asking for helicopter evacuation of the serious cases. Fortunately, the radio crew was located at a mobile army surgical hospital and a helicopter was available. The first flight reached us within twenty minutes of my message.

50. Feeding Koreans Michael Slauta, Special Observer for The Quartermaster Gen- eral. (From a speech, 16 November 1952.)

When Koreans first try the American diet they tend to overeat, and become ill. You could see the Koreans going through a mess line for a well-liked cup of coffee. They would fill the canteen cup quarter full of sugar and the remainder with coffee. We began to control the amounts of food the K oreans could have. After they became accustomed to our rations they relished them.

51. Convoy Troubles Lt. Col. Arnold C. Gilliam, Quartermaster, 2d Infantry Divi- sion

The haul from Masan to Chongju and back was 460 miles, and the turnaround took approximately 36 hours. Ten bridges were out and several rivers had to be forded. Guerrillas and bypassed enemy units attacked our convoys. One tr uck returned with nine b ullet holes in its windshield and an unscathed driver. We noticed that the guer rillas picked on the rear v ehicle in each convoy, so we moved the convoy commander’s jeep up from that posi- 1 tion and placed a 2- /2-ton truck in the rear . Then we rear-mounted 238 Combat Support in Korea a caliber .50 machine gun and stationed a gunner to return the fire. We had no more trouble with guerrillas.

52. Hot Food Lt.Col. Kenneth O. Schellberg, Quartermaster, 7th Infantry Di- vision

In the landings of the 7th Infantry Division at Inchon, I was particularly impressed by the speed with w hich food was brought forward. Each soldier carried a full C ration, but few used it. The kitchen trucks were among the f irst vehicles unloaded. Within hours of our landing most of the kitchens ashore were serving hot meals. Some of the messes even served hot rolls.

53. Never Put Off Till To-Morrow . . . Major Edward Pooley, 25th Signal Company

The 24th Infantry (25th Infantry Division) was on field ma- neuvers in Japan in June 1950. During the last few days of the maneuver it rained constantly, and most of its signal equipment got thoroughl y wet. At the close of the maneuver this equipment was loaded on vehicles and returned to the home station without .being dried and cleaned. It was supposed this delay would not damage the equipment. When the regiment arrived at its home station it w as sent directly to Korea with no opportunity to service its equipment. Eight days later the regiment was in combat, and found its signal equipment operating at approximately 50 per cent efficiency, whereas during the maneuver it had been 95 per cent effective.

54. Supply by Cable Lt. William A. Champion, Lt. Charles H. Crossley, Lt. Weldon M. Gamel, and Lt. James E. Hunter, 2d Engineer Combat Bat- talion. (From interviews by Lt. John Mewha, 8th Historical Detachment.)

The rains washed away a temporary bridge, isolating the front- line troops and our engineer company. Food and medical supplies were Short Bits 239 brought in for a 24-hour period by a cableway built by the 1st Platoon. Some men from the 3d Platoon, which had been left south of the stream, helped in the operation. A rock with telephone wire attached w as thrown to the men, and to this a half-inch rope w as attached. A three- quarter cable was attached to the rope. After the cable was pulled across, it was anchored on both sides of the stream. A snatch block, placed on the cable, ran back and forth, hauling supplies across the river.

55. Protecting Perishables Lt. Col. Kenneth o. Schellberg, Quartermaster, 7th Infantry Di- vision

We learned many tricks about shipping supplies while we were in Korea. One allowed us to protect perishab les against heat and cold. When we needed—but didn’t have—a refrigerated railroad car or truck, we used our standard v ehicles and applied the la yer principle. Frozen foods were maintained in standard tr ucks and boxcars for about three days during normal weather by placing cases of non perishables on the bottom, sides, and top of the car , then placing the frozen product in the center. To insulate against cold we sandwiched loads of fresh vegetables between protective layers of products not lik ely to be damaged by the cold.

56. Finance on the Alert Major Stanley H. Hendricks, 106th Finance Disbursing Section

While in Wonsan, we were required to remain on the aler t twenty-four hours a day because of the limited number of troops available for perimeter defense. We were on the western edge of town and the enemy often infiltrated our positions. Several times I had to have my cash verified by two disinterested officers and necessary certificates prepared. Thermite grenades were attached to my field safes at all times so that the mone y, checks, and pa y records could be quickl y destroyed. 240 Combat Support in Korea

57. Napalm Lt.Col. William C. Hammond, Jr., Chemical Officer, I Corps

Napalm mix has really come into its o wn over here. This is particularly true of its use in bombs. Last Christmas I was talking to the men of one unit who were mixing napalm at the Kimpo airfield, and they told me they had already mix ed more than 375,000 g allons. The Air Force loves napalm, and for a while we had both smoke companies mixing it. You very rarely see a flight of fighter-bombers take off in which at least one plane doesn’ t have two napalm tanks-and usuall y all have them. I believe more enemy tanks have been knocked out by napalm than by all other weapons combined.

58. A Real Convenience Lt.Col. Arnold C. Gilliam, Quartermaster, 2d Infantry Divi- sion

During the time we were trucking supplies from Yongdungpo to Pyongyang, we found that the Air Force’s C-119s were making a similar trip carrying drums of gasoline. But the y could not retur n the empty drums because of the e xplosion hazard. One of my officers did some close liaison and worked out a deal whereby the south-bound planes 1 would carry out 2- /2-ton trucks. This saved a lot of time and ef fort during the week in which we were able to work this ar rangement.

59. Radio Displacement Capt. Richard M. Lyman, 8036th Signal Operation Company

In November 1950 we thought the fighting was about over, but soon we were ourselves displacing rearward. The radio personnel over- heard enough messages to know immediately when things began to go bad. On the 29th, I w as ordered to send a jump team back to Sunchon to establish a terminal. Short Bits 241 I had been with the compan y only a few days, and had not mo ved the radios into this site, but I anticipated that moving four VHF stations with one truck would be difficult. I was promised plenty of time to phase out m y stations and pack the equipment, however. At 1300 on the 30th I got our march order from the corps signal officer. I was given lots of time—”Be in the column by 1500!” Scouring the area, I found a North Korean fire engine and a 1-1/2- ton truck. Commandeering is the militar y term for what took place. I brought the vehicles up to our equipment and loaded. Ev erything got on board except an old Korean chair, but our appearance was none too military.

60. We Didn’t Overlook Anything Lt.Col. Kenneth O. Schellberg, Quartermaster, 7th Infantry Division

After the 7th Inf antry Division landed at Iwon, its infantry regiments moved out very rapidly. The infantry was well on its way to Kapsan while the supply base was still being shifted from Iw on to Pukchong. We were able to supply the infantry only by the continuous use of our truck company, airlifts from japan, use of the division’s own light aircraft, and b y operating a ten-mile mine-con veyor system we found. We used this to transpor t 55-gallon drums from the railhead at Honggun-ni over the very rough mountains to within tw elve miles of Pungsan. We hauled gasoline all day and fought off guerrillas from our conveyor installations at night.

61. Seeing Is Believing Lt.Col. Joseph Beaver, 2d Finance Disbursing Section

The sixty miles separating the finance section from the front- line troops brought no problem. A pay team took payrolls and cash forward to advance CPs on payday and remained until e very service was completed. A battalion commander w ould advise our of fice when we could visit his units, and w e would take the pay records for perusal or 242 Combat Support in Korea voicing of complaints b y the men. Most complaints w ere without foundation; the men were just curious to see their pay records.

62. Who’s Afraid of a Tank? Capt. George R. Spreng, Korean Military Advisory Group

The South Koreans had an e xtreme fear of tanks. This was not without cause, considering ho w unprepared they were to cope with them. In time the R OKs came to realize ho w restricted the tank ers were, and how frightened were the crewmen. An incident occurred near Hamhung w hich pointed up the limitations of tanks. The Chinese Communists attached with four tanks out ahead of their infantry. Two of my ROK engineers each ran twice across the road dropping M 6 mines in the path of the tanks. All four enemy tanks were knocked out, and the attack w as stopped. The fear of tanks was much less thereafter.

63. Laying Telephone Wire by Air Command Report, 23d Infantry (October 1951)

Liaison planes in three missions laid 11,000 yards of telephone wire. It was found that 2 miles of wire will cross 1.4 miles of g round distance. That is not excessive, for wire crews normally allow a 25 per cent slack. Wire should be flown into position by 1530, as the wire crews must locate it and connect the wires before dark.To aid the wire men, a panel is tied to each end of the wire. It is suggested that smok e grenades be dropped from the plane at each end of a run. We used the planes to lay wire only when the terrain was too rough for crews to do it on the g round. However, the wire crossed ter rain where it could not be repaired. Alternate means of communication must therefore be established. Short Bits 243

64. Payroll by Helicopter Major Wilford E. Vidlock, Finance Officer, 24th Infantry Di- vision

One morning I was due at the division’s forward CP at 0900 to deliver the payroll to unit agents. I knew I could never make it by jeep, so I asked one of the pilots of a helicopter to fly me and my assistant forward. He very obligingly agreed. It took us an hour to make the trip that would have taken eight by jeep. So I claim for the finance section of the 24th Infantry Division the distinction of first having delivered a monthly payroll by helicopter. We arrived on time, so everybody was happy. You should have seen the people at forw ard when I got out of the “e ggbeater”! No joke. They were running every which way as we made our approach. When I stepped out it w as really a picnic. They thought the helicopter w as bringing General Ridgway!

245

Index

247

Index

A B Abelson, Lt Albert N, 142-150 Baker, LtCol Bar ton O, 127-128, 201- Advisers, 220 204 Aid station operation, 109-110 Baker, Lt McGail C, 147-150 Air drops, 152, 153-159, 223 Baker, Capt Willard, 132-135 Airfield construction, 38-41 Bakeries, 168 Airfield operation, 66-68 Banks, Capt Gentle S, 132-135 Air Force units: Barclay, Maj Charles H, 83 3d Air Rescue Sq: 115-113 Barker, Maj William H, 47-49 Fifth Air Force: 111-113 Barr, MajGen David G, 232 Airlifts, 100-102, 111-113, 225, 243 Bartley, Cpl Elmer L, 34-37 Air supply (See Airlifts; air drops) Bathing, 177-178 Albrecht, SFC Richard L, 98 Batson, Sgt George A, 193-198 Alexander, Lt Bevan R, 178, 183, 233 Battaglia, Cpl Elio, 193-198 Almond, LtGen Edward M, 129 Beaber, Lt Chris, 194-198 Ami-dong, 110 Beauchamp, Col Charles E, 175-176 Ammunition supply, 47-49, 58, 74, Beaver, LtCol Joseph, 241 123-125, 125-126, 126-127, 150- Bell, LtCol Edgar V H, 75-80 151, 217-218 (See also Ordnance Bell, Maj John C, 221 supply) Best, SFC Leonard J, 208-210 Amphibious operations, 5-10, 13-15, Bishop, Lt Billy G, 154 57-60, 141-150 Black market, 235 Anderson, Cpl Elmo, 59 Blair, Lt Fred O, 199-201 Anderson, LtCoI Lawrence R, 62-65 Blosser, Lt Russell O, 37 Anju, 90, 128, 148 Blumenson, Lt Mar tin, 111, 113, 114, Ansong, 147 116, 199 Anyang-ni, 37-38 Boatwright, Maj Linton S, 152 Armor units Bode, Col Donald D, 81-82 6th Tank Bn: 133 Boughton, Lt Charles A, 59 70th Tank Bn: 134-135 Brazier, Lt George W Jr, 233, 234 89th Tank Bn: 81 Bridges, 5-10, 11-13, 15-17, 18-23, 63, Artillery units 220, 224, 227, 231, 233 (See also 21st AAA Bn: 81 Amphibious operations) 96th FA Bn: 53 Briggs, Maj Merritt W, 75 Ascom City, 64-65, 80, 124, 148-150, Briscoe, Capt Pierce W, 93, 218 188 British units, 54, 73, 77-79, 147 Atkins, Lt John, 199-201 Brown, Capt Max N, 65-66 248 Combat Support in Korea Brown, Lt Robert L, 133-135 Combat boots, 222-223 Bryan, MajGen Blackshear M, 191 Communications C air, 100-102 signal, 62, 88-90, 91-93, 97 (See Cable splicing, 234 also Radio; Wire; Telephone) Cable tramway, 238-239 Cooper, LtCol Marcus E, 141-150 Callahan, LtCol George, 91-93 CopeII, Lt David C, 199-201 Campbell, Maj David F, 27-34 Coppens, Chap Francis X, 201 Campbell, Capt Gilbert S, 110-111 Corps Cancelliere, Lt Francis P, 142-150 X: 47-49, 50, 66-68, 99-100, 112- Catania, Lt Alfred J, 49-57 113, 126-127, 154, 178, 206 Cayemberg, Sgt Earl J, 34-37 Corolla, Col Louis E, 68-69 See Cemeteries ( Graves registration Cramer, Lt Arthur J, 99-100 service) Crawford, Maj Richard I, 24-26, 218 Chamjan-ni, 35-37 Crook, Capt Samuel L, 116-119 Champion, Lt William A, 18-23, 222, Crossley, Lt Charles H, 222, 224, 238 224, 238 Changjin Reservoir, 53, 115, 129, 206- D 210 Changwon, 202-204 Dailey, MSgt Warren F, 34-37 Chapman, LtCol Ernest W, 228 Dalke, WO Richard J, 208-210 Chechon, 99 Davis, Sgt Burt, 195-198 Chemical Corps units Davis, Lt Rodman M, 15-17 2d Mortar Bn: 73-75, 75-80 Dawson, Capt William J Jr, 153-159 68th Smoke Generating Co: 80-81 Defense Line Wyoming, 83 Chigol, 26-27 Deisenroth, Sgt James H, 183 Childers, Capt James E, 111-113 Demolitions, 13-15, 15-17, 17-18, 18- Chinju, 11-13 23, 27-34, 97, 218-219, 222, 239 See also Chinwi River, 13-15 ( Bridges; Mines) Chochiwon, 95, 97 DeMont, Sgt Gene C, 236 Chogye, 103 Dental treatment, 114-115 Chonan, 13-15, 63-65, 95 DiSanto, Sgt Vincenzo, 199-201 Chongchon River, 76 Dobson, Maj Lawrence, 68-69, 162- Chongdo River, 193-198 169 Chongju, 147 Dodd, Maj Harry J, 47-49 Chosin Reservoir, 181, 185 Doolin, Capt Robert F, 221, 226 Chunchon, 35-37, 118-119, 130, 160, Douthitt, Lt John, 159-161 191, 199 Drake, LtCol Frank H, 62-65 Chungam-ni, 205 Dunlap, Lt Edgar E, 193-198 Chunghwa, 128 Chungiu, 95, 112 E Clark, Maj Carl, 192 Easlom, Sgt Paul, 196 Clothing, 236 Efnor, LtCol Sam Jr, 75 exchange, 177-178 Eighth Army, 87-88, 90-91, 94-95, 99- limiting, 175-176 100, 111-113, 143, 147-150, 163, preference for, 170-171 187-188 supply, 147-150 Eliasson, Capt Arne H, 225 wet-cold, 171-175 Engineer units Coded communications, 99-100 2d Combat Bn: 18-23, 34-37, 222, Cody, Capt Henry L, 178-180 224 Cold-weather casualties, 173-175 3d Combat Bn: 5-11,24 Combat actions, 193-198, 198-199, 199- 8th Combat Bn: 35-37 201, 201-205, 206-210 10th Combat Bn: 37-38, 206-210 249 14th Combat Bn: 15-17, 231 H 50th Port Construction Co: 59 Habon-dong, 34 55th Treadway Bridge Co: 15-17 Hachon, 37 65th Combat Bn: 11-13, 13-15, Haden, Capt D J, 15-17 23-24, 205 Hagaru-ri, 206-210 76th Construction Bn: 42-44 Hajinbu-ri, 131 185th Combat Bn: 17-18, 206 Hale, Sgt Robert, 158 822d Aviation Bn: 38-41 Hamchang, 95 8224th Construction Group: 47, Hamhung, 50, 109, 206 206 Hammond, LtCol William C Jr, 230, Equipment 236, 240 evacuating, 132-135 Han River, 13-15, 15-17, 24, 37-38, 59, maintenance, 42-44 63-65, 104, 234 repair, 153 Hangye, 131 testing, 161-162 Hanpo-ri, 63-65, 148 (See also Preventive maintenance; Harbert, LtCol John E, 125-126, 210- Personnel) 212, 217 Erskine, Capt Jasper N, 47-49 Harris, LtCol Homer P, 150-153, 221 Evacuation, casualty, 110-111, 111-113, Heiser, LtCol Joseph M, 128-132 216, 217, 225 Helicopters (See Airlifts; Transpor- Evacuation, of dead, 183 tation Corps units) Evans, Lt James, 142-150 Helmets, 228-229 Expedients, engineer, 37-38 Henderson, Maj Walter C, 38-41 Hendricks, Maj Stanley H, 239 F Hennessy, Capt Carl D, 146-150 Fallon, Capt Rudolph A, 219 Hill 201, 103 Ferenbaugh, MajGen Claude B, 130 Hill 303, 9-11 Fisher, Col Henry G, 11-13 Hill 409, 102-104 Flame throwers, 83, 230 Hill 568, 36-37 Fouts. Mai Sydney L, 111-113 Hill 728, 34 Fox, Sgt David J, 218 Hill 783, 27-34 Fox, Cart William J, 80 Hill 828, 27-34 Friday, Cpl Earl M, 132-135 Hill 1157, 93-94 Fullerton, LtCol Thomas K, 42-44 Hinkey, LtCol Olin T, 215 Hoengsong, 127 G Hongchon, 48, 127 Gallen, Lt Earl W, 147 Horan, Lt Donald J, 235 Gamel, Lt Weldon M, 222, 224, 238 Hospelhorn, Capt Cecil W, 153 George, Capt Clair L, 77 Hospitals, field, 115-116, 116-119 Gerken, LtCol Walter W, 123 Howard, Lt David S. 94-95 Gibbs, Lt George M, 142-150 Hungnam, 17-18, 67-68, 129, 182 Gilliam, LtCol Arnold C, 219, 222, Hunter, Lt James E, 222, 224, 238 227, 228, 237, 240 Hwachon, 118-119, 130 Gilroy, Capt Robert J, 57-60 Hwaggan, 124 Glenn, Lt Carl E, 59 Hwangju, 148 Graves registration service, 143-144, Hwasu-dong, 29-34 180-182 Hyopchon, 103 Green, Lt (jg) Edward, 201 Hyzer, LtCol Peter C, 5-11 Griffin, Sgt Thomas E, 193-198 I Grupe, MSgt Julius R, 18-23 Guerrilla actions, 193-198, 198-199 Ice, breaking, 235 Guth, Lt Carrol W, 17-18 Imjin River, 63-65 250 Combat Support in Korea Imwalle, Cpl Paul R, 183 Kinnaman, WO John Jr, 223, 231 Inchon, 49, 64-65, 66, 96, 125, 175, 226 Kirkman, CWO Byron, 158 Infantry units Kochang, 94 1st Cay Div: 58, 83, 102, 123-125, Korean National Railroads, 62-65 141-150 Koto-ri, 54-57 2d Inf Div: 18-23, 59, 34-37, 76, Kowon, 51 77, 102-104, 146, 150-153, 175, Kujang-dong, 77-80 219 Kulbes, Cart Philip A, 206-210 3d Inf Div: 37-38, 47, 109-110, Kumchon, 60-61, 95-96, 97, 143, 150 110-111 Kumgang Temple Hill, 92-93 5th Cay Regt: 143,219 Kumho River, 6-11, 231 5th Inf Regt: 76, 133, 201 Kumhwa, 81 7th Inf Div: 53-57, 66, 99-100, Kunu-ri, 76, 219 109-110, 110-111, 115-116, 128- Kurtz, Maj Jacob W, 180-182 132, 147, 161-62, 175, 175-176, Kwan-ni, 124, 143 177-178, 180-182, 199, 184-186 Kyongju, 60-61 8th Cay Regt: 26-27 Kyongsan, 5-11 9th Inf Regt: 77, 103 Kyungju, 116 17th Inf Regt: 99-100 19th Inf Regt: 90-91 L 21st Inf Regt: 201 Lambert, Lt Charles, 142-150 23d Inf Regt: 36-37, 59, 225 Lamont, Col James M, 68-69, 143, 222 24th Inf Div: 5-11, 61, 73, 76, 94, Language problems, 221-222 98, 113-114, 114-115, 124, 146, Laundry service, 152-153, 177-178, 187-188,191-193,199-201 178-180 25th Inf Div: 11-13, 13-15,24, 103, LeGaspi, PFC Daniel, 196-198 127-128, 144, 146, 173, 201-204 Leighton, Lt Henry P, 35-37 27th Inf Regt: 81 Lenzner, Col Emil, 88 31st Inf Regt: 185 Lepke, Capt Richard P, 5-11 32d Inf Regt: 175-176 Lew Won Sik, Col, 29-34 35th Inf Regt: 11-13, 205 Ley, Lt Jack W, 59 38th Inf Regt: 18-23, 77, 228 Lieberberg, LtCol George, 87-88 65th Inf Regt: 50 Linden, LtCol James E, 231 Ingram, Lt Leroy, 132-135 Logistical commands Integration, 159, 211, 221 2d: 91-93 Intrenching tools, 219 3d: 148 Iwon, 115, 181 Japan: 184 J Pusan: 42-44, 91-93 Jacoby, Cart Fred C, 161-162 Luk, LtCol William, 191-193 Johnson, Sgt Lester H, 20-23 Lupo, Lt Jasper, 93-94 Johnson, Cart Richard A, 169-171 Lusk, Sgt Claude H, 193-198 Johnston, Cart Homer W, 216 Lyman, Capt Richard M, 240 Jones, Lt Claude A, 154 M Joswiak, Cart Cass J, 102-104 Manuals, 230 K Margetis, Maj Peter M, 114-115 Kaesong, 62-65, 148, 188 Marine Corps units, 54-57, 58, 104- Kapyong, 199 106, 174-175, 206-210 Kean, MajGen William B, 127, 202 Marshall, Col S L A, 186 Keiser, MajGen Laurence B, 103 Martens, LtCol Howard W, 62-65 Kennedy, Cart Douglas O, 215 Masan, 58, 61 Kimpo, 147 Mathews, Capt David L, 126-127 251 McAdoo, Capt Richard F, 11-13, 14- Neal, Col Paul, 88 15 Nelson, Sgt Clifton B, 58 McClellan, LtCol Jesse M, 62-65 Niedermeyer, Lt W T, 150 McClure, Capt James E, 42-44 Norman, Capt James D, 171 McCormick, Col John K, 47-49 North Korean forces, 27-34 McCracken, Sgt Eugene F, 193-198 McGuire, Capt John M, 115-116, 229 O McMillan, Capt Jenis C, 141-150 Obradovich, Capt Francis S, 233 Mecca, Capt M A, 111-113 O’Brien, Lt Robert T, 217, 229 Medical units Office-machine repair, 179 1st MASH: 47, 115-116 Operation Commando, 83 2d MASH: 47 Operation Wellsend, 80-81 4th Field Hospital: 114 Operator training, 42-44 ( See also 6th Mobile Optical Unit, 114 Personnel, replacement) Med Co, 7th Inf: 109-110, 110-111 Optical treatment, 113-114 7th Med Bn: 115-116 Ordnance supply, 127-128, 128-132 Med Co, 21st Inf: 199-201 (See also Ammunition supply) 24th Med Bn: 113-114, 114-115 Ordnance units 121st Evac Hospital: 50 7th Medium Maint Co: 129-132 629th Clearing Co: 118-119 38th Medium Maint Co: 193-198 8063d MASH: 202 44th Depot Co: 132-135 8076th MASH: 112, 114, 115, 116- 57th Recovery Co: 132-135 119 69th Ammo Co: 126-127 Mess kits, 166, 168 69th Ord Bn: 47 Message center operation, 98, 99-100 314th Ammo Group: 125-126, Mewha, Lt John, 17, 18, 34, 47, 126, 210-212 216, 222, 224, 225, 238 707th Maint Co: 129-132 Military police units 725th Ord Co: 202-204 24th MP Co: 192 8046th Field Group: 133 622d MP Co: 197-198 Osaka General Hospital, 174 Miller, Sgt Guy W, 196-198 Osan, 13-15, 95, 97, 147 Mines, 23-24, 24-26, 26-27, 27-34, 242 Miryang, 94, 95 P Mokto Island, 92-93 Moore, Lt Henry J. 196 Pachomski, Maj John, 145 Morale problems, 210-212 Page, LtCol Clarence E, 62-65 Mortars, 73-75, 75-80 Page, Col Thomas N, 111-113 Mossman, Capt B C, 15, 62, 215 Pakchon, 148 Mothershead, LtCol John L, 116-119 Parish, Lt Freddy B, 80-81 Mukden cable, 94-95, 95-96, 97 Paying troops, 231-232, 241-242, 243 Mules, feeding, 218 Payne, Lt Claude, 59 Peploe, Col George B, 228 N Personal effects (See Graves registra- Naepyong-ni, 37 tion service) Naksan-dong, 7-11 Personnel, replacement, 42-44, 87-88, Naktong, 25, 26-27, 27-34, 62-65, 90, 127, 131, 184, 233-234 94, 95, 205 Pessa, Maj Joseph, 14-15 Naktong River, 5-11, 59, 63-65, 102- Peter, Lt William E, 193-198 104, 188 Photography, aerial, 102-104, 229 Nam River, 11-13 Photography, combat, 104-106 Namchonjon, 150 Pierce, Capt John W, 88-90 Napalm, 81-82, 83, 240 Pitcher, Col Thomas A, 88, 94, 97-98, Navy officers, 201 234 252 Combat Support in Korea Pohang-dong, 58, 59, 123-124, 142-148 Refugees, 191-193 Poksong-dong, 145 Republic of Korea (ROK) forces, 27- Polich, LtCol Frank J, 38-41 34, 30-34 Pollock, Maj Carl A, 220, 227, 230 Riley, Sgt Lawrence, 58 Pooley, Maj Edward, 238 River crossings (See Amphibious op- Pounder, William F, 171-175 erations; Bridges) Preventive maintenance, 135-137, 224- Roads, 228 225, 238 Roberts, LtCol Clifford E, 224 Pukchon, 115-116, 180-182, 185 Rollins, Capt Alfred G, 178-180 Pukchong, 53 Rosen, Lt Noramn R, 37-38, 206-210 Puller, Col Lewis B, 54 Rothermel, Maj Samuel, 113-114 Punchbowl, The, 225 Roush, Capt Donald E, 15-17 Pusan, 42-44, 48, 50, 60-61, 65-66, 68- Ruffner, MajGen Clark L, 152 69, 77, 80, 91, 95-96, 103, 113, Russell, Capt Charles, 123-125 125, 145, 188 S Pusan Base Section, 60-61 Pyongyang, 40-41, 62-65, 90, 132-135, Sachang-ni, 109 148-150, 160, 188 Sadon, 133-135 Sainjang, 149 Q Samnangjin, 61 Sams, Lt Upshaw, 149 Quartermaster units Samsong-dong, 35-37 2d QM Co: 151-153, 183 Sangtong-ni, 206-210 15th QM Co: 141-150 Sangju,10-11 55th QM Depot: 68-69 Sapyong-ni, 149 505th Recl & Maint Co: 178-180 Sariwon, 97, 135 520th QM Bn: 47 Sarka, Lt Rudolph A, 109-110, 110-111 545th Service Co: 159-161 Schellberg, LtCol K enneth O, 177- 549th Laundry Co: 149, 178-180 178, 181, 226, 230, 232, 238, 239, 580th Off Mach Repair Det: 178- 241 180 Scherer, LtCol Charles R, 184-186 821st Bath Co: 178-180 Secan, Capt Frank D, 90-91, 198-199 8081st Abn Air Sup & P ack Co: Seoul, 13-15, 15-17, 47, 62-65, 79, 80- 153-159 81, 90, 96, 104-106, 110, 124, 149 Service Center No 3: 178-180 Service center, 178-180 R Shick, Maj Dale H, 91-93 Shoe repair, 179 Radio, use of, 88-90, 90-91, 91-93, 93- Signal Corps units 94, 217, 236-237, 240-241 2d Signal Co: 102-104 Railway operations, 17-18, 18-23, 60- 4th Signal Bn: 47, 206-210 61, 62-65, 65-66, 132-135, 159- 7th Signal Co: 99-100 161, 227-228 24th Signal Co: 88-90 Ranges, kitchen, 166-167 71st Service Bn: 95-96 Rations 101st Operation Bn: 93-94, 218 preferences in, 162-169, 169-171, 304th Operation Bn: 87, 90-91, 232-233, 237 100-102,198-199 supply, 142, 151-152, 162-169 522d Constr Co: 87 Reconnaissance, 34- 37 532d Constr Co: 94-95 Reconnaissance Company, 24th, 192 8035th Service Co: 87 Reed, Capt James B, 66-68 8052d Post Det: 87 Refrigeration, 239 8226th GHQ Long Lines Ser vice Refueling operations, 215-216, 240, Group: 87 241 Simms, Sgt James M, 58 253 Sinanju, 63-65, 148 Tank recovery, 132-135 Sindong, 62-65 Tanyang, 129 Sinmak, 148 Task Force Allen, 146 Sinnyong, 27-34 Task Force Baker, 201-204 Sinpori, 199 Telephone service, 94-95, 95-96 Sisson, Lt George D Jr, 80-81 Tennant, Capt Fred J, 228, 233 Sizing problems, 26 Thomasson, Sgt M J, 193-198 Skelton, LtCol James H, 22-23 Throckmorton, Col John L, 9-11 Slauta, Michael, 215, 223, 226, 236, 237 Torman, Capt Charles, 202-204 Smith, LtCol Arne D, 11-113 Traffic (See Truck transportation; Smith, Capt Francis P, 194 Railway operations) Smith, Lt George E, 208-210 Transportation Corps units Smith, Lt Paul E:, 154 3d TAT Co: 57-60 Smoke, 80-81 3d TMRS: 62-65 Snyder, Capt Ira, 202-204 52d Truck Bn: 47-49, 50-57 Soksa-ri,47, 110 74th Truck Co: 57 Soksa River, 110-111 377th Truck Co: 49-57 Songso-dong, 193-198 425th Traffic Reg Group: 215 Sorenson, LtCol Martin 0, 28-34 558th TAT Co: 59 Soyang River, 34-37, 126-127, 233 714th Rwy Op Bn: 65-66 Spare-parts replacement, 74, 123, 136, 724th Rwy Op Bn: 65-66 179-180,230,236 8010th TMRS: 60-61 Spellman, Maj James W, 187-188 8062d TAT Co: 57 Spillers, MSgt Jack R, 62-65 8193d Helicopter Unit: 111-113 Spreng, Capt George R, 216, 220, 242 Troop movements (See Truck trans- Starobin, Lt Sam D, 13-15, 23-24 portation) Streetman, LtCol James P, 149-150 Truck transportation, 47-49, 49-57,57- Strickland, Lt Robert L, 104-106 60, 129, 142, 151, 237-238 Striley, Capt Wayne A, 95-96 Turkish forces, 220, 227, 230 Strouse, Capt Robert L, 205 Sukchon, 77, 133, 188 U Sullivan, Capt Daniel B, 113-114 Sulzer, Sgt James G, 34-37 Uijongbu, 24 Sunchon, 133, 149 Uisong, 25 Supply Unification, 215 classes, 126 Unsan, 77, 148 failure of, 187-188 mobility in, 183-186 V operations, 68-69, 141-150, 184- Veach, Sgt Carrol L, 178-180 186, 226-227 (See also Truck Vidlock, Maj Wilford E, 243 transportation; Railway operation; Ordnance suppl y; Ra- tions, etc.) W Suwon, 37-38, 97, 148 Waegwan, 5-11,63-65,188 Suyong, 58 Washington, Lt Dewey Jr, 178-180 Swapping, 215, 229-230 Watkins, Maj Vernon L, 234 Wheatley, Lt Jack R, 15-17 T White, Sgt Richard L, 132-135 Taedong, 63-65, 133 Wildrick, Capt Meade D, 60-61 Taedong River, 63-65, 133-135 Williams, Lt John F, 59 Taegu, 5-11, 38-41, 50, 60-61, 90, 94- Williamson, Capt Edward C, 132, 193 95, 99, 113, 125, 146 Willoughby, Maj Cleo M, 73-75 Taejon, 60-61, 65-66, 89, 143 Wilson, MSgt William T, 132-135 254 Combat Support in Korea Wire Y field communications, 94-95, 95- 96, 242 Yalu River, 115, 181, 185 demolition of, 40 Yanggu, 36-37 recovery, 219, 226 Yesong River, 63-65 Wittwer, Maj Glade S, 26-27 Yodok-tong, 28-34 Wolmi-do, 49, 59 Yongchon, 25, 33-34, 60-61, 129 Wonju, 18-23, 48, 65-66, 95, 97, 127, Yongdok, 58 160 Yongdungpo, 64-65, 148 Wonju River, 19-23 Yonghung, 50 Won-ni, 77 Yongju, 99, 130 Wonsan, 50 Yonpo, 66-68 Wurtzler, LtCol Herber t W, 132-135 Young, MajGen Robert N, 152 Wurz, Lt William F, 183 Yusung, 94, 95-96

✩ U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1990 O— 261-877